UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


THE    REVOLT    OF 
DEMOCRACY 


BY 

ALFRED   RUSSEL  WALLACE 

O.M.,  D.C.L.Oxon.,  F.R.S.,  Etc. 

Author  of  "Social  Environment  and  Moral  Progress, 
"Natural  Selection,"    "Man's  Place  in  the 
Universe,"  "Darwinism,"  Etc. 


WITH    THE 

LIFE  STORY   OF  THE    AUTHOR 

By   JAMES    MARCHANT.    F.R.S.Edin. 


FUNK    &    WAGNALLS    COMPANY 

NEW   YORK  and   LONDON 
1914 


I 


^■.    i 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 


207040 


PAGE 


Life  Story  of  the  Author      .         .  vii 

TER 

1.  Introductory  .....  i 

2.  The  Dawn  of  a  New  Era        .         .  7 

3.  The  Lesson  of  the  Strikes     .         .  11 

\         4.  What  the  Workers  Claim  and  Must 

^                  Have '  14 

5.  A  Government's  Duty      ...  22 

6.  Popular  Objections,  and  Replies  to 

Them 35 

7.  The  Problem  of  Wages  ...  40 

\  8.  Self-Supporting  Work  the  Remedy 

J^                    FOR  Unemployment       ...  53 

9.  The     Economies    of    Co-ordinated 

Labour         .....  60 


10.  The   Effect   of   High    Wages   upon 

Foreign  Trade     ....       68 

11.  The     Rational     Solution     of    the 

Labour  Problem  ....       74 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

Like  a  watchman  on  a  lonely  tower,  with  keen 
vision  and  responsive  mind  and  heart,  Alfred 
Russel  Wallace  has  observed  more  change  and 
development  of  scientific  and  social  opinion 
and  a  higher  advance  of  the  tide  of  knowledge 
across  the  shores  of  human  speculation  and 
ignorance  than  any  living  scientist.  Yet,  unlike 
that  solitary  watchman,  he  himself  has  been, 
and  is,  an  active  pioneer  of  scientific  revelation. 
For  a  long  time  he  was  the  voice  of  a  system  of 
truths  so  far  ahead  of  the  attainments  of  his 
generation  that  to  his  contemporaries  much  of 
his  teaching  seemed  rank  heresy  and  almost 
blasphemy  ;  but,  like  a  true  prophet,  he  has 
had  not  only  the  patience  but  the  opportunity 
given  him  to  see  most  of  his  discoveries  and  his 
teachings  incorporated  into  the  stately  palace  of 
truth. 

When  he  was  born  in  1823,  our  world,  as 
we  know  it  to-day  (a  composite  thing  of 
multitudinous  energies  thirled  to  the  service 
and  utility  of  mankind)  had  scarcely  come 
into   existence.      He    has    seen    the    formidable 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

and  mysterious  powers  of  electricity  en- 
slaved to  the  service  of  the  ordinary  affairs 
of  daily  life,  and  has  watched  with  glowing 
interest  the  coming  of  the  motor-car  and  the 
flying  machine.  He  has  lived  under  five  British 
sovereigns,  has  witnessed  the  spread  and  deve- 
lopment of  railways,  and  the  adoption  of  steam 
for  navigation,  the  supersession  of  the  wooden 
walls  by  the  steel  bulwarks  of  Britannia,  and 
other  changes  beyond  record  in  the  practical 
application  of  scientific  discoveries,  "When  he 
was  a  boy,  photography  was  a  plaything,  the 
electric  telegraph  a  mere  experiment,  the  penny 
post  unknown,  the  newspaper  a  luxury  of  the 
few,  the  material  world,  as  a  whole,  a  vast  and 
impenetrable  wilderness,  continent  separated 
from  continent  by  wide-stretching  seas,  traversed 
only  by  daring  spirits. 

He  has  seen  the  material  world  of  mere 
geography  shrink  till  now  it  can  be  girdled  by  the 
commonest  message  in  a  matter  of  minutes  ;  he 
has  seen  the  newspaper  in  every  home,  the 
simplest  word  of  love  carried  the  whole  empire 
over  for  one  penny,  the  criminal  and  the  out- 
cast treated  more  like  sinners  to  be  redeemed 
who  are  often  "  more  sinned  against  than 
sinning." 

To  have  seen  so  much  is  to  make  any  man 
a  centre  of  human  interest.  To  hear  the  now 
aged  naturalist  tell  of  what  his  life  has  been 
awakens  vivid  response  even  in  the  heart  of  the 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

most  apathetic.  But  to  know  that  all  the  while 
he  was  no  shirker  in  life's  upward  march,  but 
himself  a  profound  thinker,  a  ceaseless  searcher, 
a  sagacious  discoverer,  and  that  most  of  his 
theories  and  opinions,  which  had  been  scouted 
by  thinkers  for  many  years,  are  now  sound 
and  current  coin  in  the  treasure-house  of  true 
science,  is  gratefully  to  acknowledge  him  as 
one  of  the  greatest  sons  of  his  age  and  a  shining 
benefactor  for  all  time. 

His  father,  Thomas  Vere  Wallace,  a  briefless 
lawyer,  was  also  an  experimenter.  He  had  a 
family  of  nine  children.  It  was  little  satisfac- 
tion that  the  number  of  the  Muses  was  the  same, 
for  the  Muses  were  not  confronted  by  the  prob- 
lem of  bread-and-butter  which  perturbs  a  human 
family.  He  was  not  of  a  practical  turn  of  mind, 
and  his  private  income  was  not  sufficient  to 
provide  for  the  necessities  of  his  children.  But 
he  was  a  man  of  literary  taste,  and  he  embarked 
upon  a  venture  of  a  very  speculative  nature, 
namely  the  publication  of  an  Art  Magazine, 
which  wellnigh  exhausted  what  means  he  still 
possessed.  He  therefore  had  to  leave  London, 
and  transferred  his  household  goods  and  gods 
to  the  town  of  Usk  in  Monmouthshire,  where 
he  tried  the  new  experiment  of  economy.  Here 
Alfred,  the  last  but  one  of  the  nine,  was  born, 
and  here  he  spent  the  first  four  years  of  his  life, 
with  no  need  to  go  outside  of  his  own  house  for 
a  plentiful  supply   of  playmates.     In   1828  the 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

family  made  another  move — to  Hertford — and 
there  they  remained  for  about  nine  years.  At 
the  grammar  school  of  that  provincial  town 
young  Wallace  received  the  only  regular  edu- 
cation, in  the  popular  acceptance  of  the  term, 
which  was  to  be  the  basis  of  his  wider  intel- 
lectual development. 

With  him  it  is  different  than  with  most  men 
of  note,  for  his  contemporaries,  having  all  now 
passed  into  the  greater  silence,  there  is  no  source 
of  anecdotal  reminiscence  and  estimate  of  his 
boyhood  left,  except  his  own  memory.  It  is 
always  of  pleasing  interest  to  know  what  a 
boy's  comrades  thought  of  him,  what  he  did  or 
said  to  make  the  keen  critics  of  the  schoolroom 
or  the  playground  take  note  of  him,  and  wherein, 
if  anywhere,  he  differed  from  his  fellows.  One 
thing,  at  any  rate,  is  certain  :  the  mode  of  formal 
instruction  under  the  shadow  of  which  he  passed, 
in  those  swift  enough  years  at  the  Hertford 
Grammar  School,  was  not  of  a  sort  to  benefit 
deeply  such  a  mind  as  his.  Geography  was  a 
list  of  towns  and  rivers ;  history  little  more 
than  tables  of  dates,  all  to  be  learned  by  rote, 
without  regard  to  the  causal  origins  of  such  a 
thing  as  a  country,  a  kingdom,  a  river,  or 
the  achievement  of  human  effort  which  gave 
memorableness  to  the  figures  of  a  calendar.  To 
such  a  youth,  who  no  doubt  from  the  first 
looked  over  the  shoulder  of  to-day  back  into  the 
misty  yesterdays  out  of  which  to-day  emerges. 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

asking  the  Why  as  anxiously  as  the  What 
of  things,  this  schooling  must  have  been  very 
unsatisfying.  As  he  himself  says,  "  The  labour 
and  mental  effort  to  one  who,  like  myself,  has 
little  verbal  memory  was  very  painful ;  and 
though  the  result  has  been  a  somewhat  useful 
acquisition  during  life,  I  cannot  but  think  that 
the  same  amount  of  mental  exertion,  wisely 
directed,  might  have  produced  far  greater  and 
more  generally  useful  results."  It  was  also  most 
natural  that  the  eclectic  method  of  historical 
study  should  have  most  strongly  appealed  to 
him,  so  that  he  can  say,  "  Whatever  little  know- 
ledge of  history  I  have  ever  acquired  has  been 
derived  more  from  Shakespeare's  plays  and  from 
good  historical  novels  than  from  anything  I 
learned  at  school," 

To  watch  men  and  women  who  thought,  toiled, 
and  achieved,  rough-hewing  life's  obstacles  into 
instruments  of  life's  victories,  is  of  greater 
moment  than  reading  tombstone  records  or  having 
one's  name  written  up  on  a  schoolroom  slate. 
The  method  of  visualised  humanities,  breath- 
ing, living  and  doing,  is  ages  in  advance  of  that 
which  thinks  of  history  as  being  mainly  great 
men  sitting  in  their  bones  in  an  anatomical 
museum,  labelled  "  History."  Latin  grammar, 
and,  in  the  higher  classes,  Latin  translation — 
these  were  the  subjects  chiefly  taught. 

But  Wallace's  life  was,  fortunately,  inde- 
pendent of,  and  lifted  out  of  such  a  cramping 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

environment  by  other  circumstances,  which  such 
narrow  schemes  could  not  control.  His  father  was 
a  book-lover  and  belonged  to  a  book  club,  and 
the  soul  of  the  lad  was  enriched  by  a  constantly 
flowing  stream  of  suggestive  and  elevating  litera- 
ture. A  bookman's  home  is  the  best  of  universi- 
ties. His  father  frequently  read  aloud  in  the 
evenings  from  such  books  as  Mungo  Park's 
"  African  Travels,"  along  with  those  of  Denham 
and  Clapperton.  Then  there  was  the  sunshine 
that  scintillates  through  Hood's  "  Comic  Annual," 
and  the  grave  and  gay  of  "  Gulliver's  Travels  " 
and  of  "  Robinson  Crusoe,"  and  the  deep-toned 
gravity  and  humour,  with  knowledge  of  the 
human  heart  unparalleled,  in  "  The  Pilgrim's 
Progress."  Thus  the  companionship  and  wisdom 
of  such  creations  of  human  genius  enlightened 
the  ready  mind  of  the  growing  youth  by  the 
evening  fire  of  that  Hertford  home.  His  father 
for  some  part  of  his  residence  in  Hertford  was 
librarian  of  the  town  library,  and  there,  in  the 
quickening  presence  of  books,  young  Wallace 
spent  many  of  his  leisure  hours. 

When  he  left  school,  at  the  age  of  fourteen, 
he  stayed  for  a  short  time  with  his  elder  brother 
John,  who  was  at  that  time  apprenticed  to  a 
builder  in  London.  It  was  at  this  period  that 
he  first  came  in  contact  with  people  of  advanced 
political  and  religious  opinions,  and  read  such 
works  as  Paine's  "  Age  of  Reason."  He  also 
met  followers  of  Robert  Owen,  the  founder  of 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

the  Socialist  movement  in  England.  Robert 
Owen's  fundamental  principle  was  that  the 
character  of  every  individual  was  formed  for 
him,  and  not  hy  himself  :  first,  by  heredity, 
which  gives  him  his  mental  disposition  with  all 
its  powers  and  tendencies,  its  good  and  bad 
qualities  ;  and,  secondly,  by  environment,  includ- 
ing education  and  surroundings  from  earliest 
infancy,  which  always  modify  the  original 
character  for  better  or  for  worse. 

Young  Wallace,  whose  upbringing  had  been 
strictly  orthodox,  was  greatly  impressed  by  these 
doctrines  ;  and  the  ideas  they  inspired,  though 
latent  for  fifty  years,  no  doubt  largely  influ- 
enced his  thoughts  and  his  writings  when  he 
ultimately  turned  his  attention  from  purely 
scientific  to  social  and  political  subjects. 

After  a  stay  of  a  few  months  in  London  he 
joined  his  eldest  brother  William,  who  was  a 
surveyor  ;  and  for  the  next  four  years  (1837  to 
1841)  they  were  occupied  together  in  surveying 
in  the  counties  of  Bedfordshire,  Herefordshire, 
Radnorshire,  and  Brecknockshire.  Some  of  this 
work  was  in  connection  with  the  various  Enclo- 
sure Acts,  by  which  the  landlords  obtained  powers 
to  enclose  waste  lands  and  commons,  under  the 
pretext  of  bringing  them  into  cultivation.  The 
result  of  these  measures  was  that  the  cottagers 
were  deprived  of  the  means  of  keeping  their  few 
cattle,  pigs,  or  ponies,  while  the  enclosed  land 
was  often  not  cultivated  at  all,  or,  in  the  course 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

of  time  was  converted  into  building  land  or  into 
game  preserves,  so  that  the  intention  of  the 
Acts  of  Parliament  was  ignored,  and  the  poor 
people  were  driven  to  the  towns,  where,  unfit  to 
compete,  they  sank  into  the  deeper  poverty 
of  slumdom. 

Some  of  the  surveys  had  to  do  with  new 
railways  which  were  being  projected  all  over 
the  country  at  that  time,  many  of  them  doomed 
never  to  come  into  being,  and  many  being  mere 
clap  -  trap  schemes  of  money  -  sucking  adven- 
turers. 

It  was  owing  to  this  open-air  life,  with  plenty 
of  leisure  amidst  beautiful  country,  that  Wallace's 
observant  mind  was  drawn  into  loving  observa- 
tion, which  developed  into  more  than  companion- 
ship with  the  flowers  and  insects  which  every- 
where abounded  in  such  vast  variety. 

From  such  close  interest  he  soon  passed  on  to 
a  serious  study,  in  pursuit  of  which  he  com- 
menced to  form  a  scientific  collection  of  the 
wild  flowers  and  the  insects  he  met  with. 

During  his  residence  in  Neath  in  1841  he 
began  to  extend  his  knowledge  in  physics,  astro- 
nomy, and  phrenology,  that  half-blind  groping 
after  a  greater  science,  taking  advantage  of 
popular  lectures  on  those  subjects  and  of  such 
books  as  he  could  obtain. 

In  1843  his  father  died,  and  in  the  following 
year  there  being  then  little  in  the  way  of  surveying 
to  do,  Wallace  obtained  a  situation  as  drawing- 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

master  at  the  Collegiate  School  at  Leicester,  His 
two  years'  residence  in  this  town  was  to  have 
an  important  influence  upon  his  future  career, 
for  it  was  here  that  he  first  met  Henry  Walter 
Bates,  with  whom  he  commenced  his  tropical 
travels  four  years  later — so  momentous  not  only 
for  himself,  but  for  the  world.  It  was  here  also 
that  he  read  Malthus's  "  Principles  of  Popula- 
tion." This  pioneer  work,  after  his  long  study 
and  observation  of  tropical  fauna,  supplied  the 
inspiration  which  clinched  the  theory  of  evolution 
he  originated  in  1858. 

At  this  time  one  other  important  event  hap- 
pened which  was  to  influence  his  ideas  in  later 
years,  namely,  a  demonstration  of  the  pheno- 
menon of  mesmerism,  which  interested  him  so 
much  that  he  practised,  and  eventually  suc- 
ceeded in  mesmerising  some  of  his  pupils. 

After  remaining  in  Leicester  for  two  years, 
Wallace  returned  to  Neath,  where  he  and  his 
brother  John  started  in  business  as  architects 
and  builders.  Hither  they  brought  their  mother 
and  sister  to  live  with  them. 

He  was  now  twenty-three  years  of  age,  and 
over  six  feet  tall.  He  had  acquired  a  large  store 
of  varied  knowledge,  and  made  his  first  appearance 
as  a  lecturer.  He  delivered  a  series  of  expositions 
of  scientific  subjects,  dealing  mainly  with  physics, 
at  the  Neath  Mechanics'  Institute,  the  building 
which  he  and  his  brother  had  designed  and 
supervised.     He   also   made   his   first   essays   at 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

literature,  and  wrote  papers  on  botany  and  on 
the  Welsh  peasantry. 

His  letters  of  this  period  throw  an  interesting 
light  not  only  upon  his  own  thoughts  but  upon 
the  problems  which  were  occupying  the  minds 
of  scientific  thinkers.  He  refers  to  the  writings 
of  Lyell,  and  to  Darwin's  "  Journal  of  a 
Naturalist,"  Humboldt's  "  Personal  Narrative," 
"  The  Vestiges  of  Creation,"  and  Lawrence's 
"  Lectures  on  Man."  In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Bates, 
dated  1847,  he  writes  : 

"  I  begin  to  feel  rather  dissatisfied  with  a 
mere  local  collection  ;  little  is  to  be  learnt  by  it. 
I  should  like  to  take  one  family,  to  study  tho- 
roughly, principally  with  a  view  to  the  theory  of 
the  origin  of  species.  By  that  means  I  am  strongly 
of  opinion  that  some  definite  results  might  be 
arrived  at."  Eleven  years  later  he  gave  to  the 
world  those  "  definite  results  "  of  his  study  in 
the  theory  of  "  Evolution  by  the  Survival  of  the 
Fittest." 

Bates  and  Wallace  finally  decided  to  go  to 
the  tropics  to  study  the  birds  and  insects,  and 
to  support  themselves  by  their  collections.  They, 
therefore,  sailed  from  Liverpool  in  April,  1848, 
in  a  barque  of  one  hundred  and  ninety-two  tons, 
and  arrived  in  Para  after  a  voyage  of  twenty-nine 
days. 

The  four-and-a-half  years  which  Wallace  spent 
in  South  America  have  been  fully  described  in  his 
"  Travels  on  the  Amazon  and  Rio  Negro."     In 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

a  letter  describing  his  impressions  of  the  tropics 
he  wrote  : 

"  There  is  one  natural  feature  of  this  country 
the  interest  and  grandeur  of  which  may  be  fully 
appreciated  in  a  single  walk  ;  it  is  the  '  virgin 
forest.'  Here  no  one  who  has  any  feeling  of  the 
magnificent  and  the  sublime  can  be  disappointed  ; 
the  sombre  shade  scarce  illumined  by  a  single 
direct  ray  even  of  the  tropical  sun,  the  enormous 
size  and  height  of  the  trees,  most  of  which  rise 
like  huge  columns  a  hundred  feet  or  more  without 
throwing  out  a  single  branch,  the  strange  buttresses 
around  the  base  of  some,  the  spiney  or  furrowed 
stems  of  others,  the  curious  and  even  extra- 
ordinary creepers  and  climbers  which  wind  around 
them,  hanging  in  long  festoons  from  branch  to 
branch,  sometimes  curling  and  twisting  on  the 
ground  like  great  serpents,  then  mounting  to  the 
very  tops  of  the  trees,  thence  throwing  down 
roots  and  fibres  which  hang  waving  in  the  air  or, 
twisting  round  each  other,  form  ropes  and  cables 
of  every  variety  of  size  and  often  of  most  perfect 
regularity.  These  and  many  other  novel  features 
— the  parasitic  plants  growing  on  the  trunks  and 
branches,  the  wonderful  variety  of  foliage,  the 
strange  fruits  and  seeds  that  lie  rotting  on  the 
ground — taken  altogether  surpass  description  and 
produce  feelings  in  the  beholder  of  admiration  and 
awe.  It  is  here,  too,  that  the  rarest  birds,  the 
most  lovely  insects  and  the  most  interesting 
mammals   and  reptiles  are  to  be   found.     Here 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

lurk  the  jaguar  and  the  boa-constrictor,  and  here 
amidst  the  densest  shade  the  bell-bird  tolls  his 
peal." 

He  also  relates  his  "  unexpected  sensation  of 
surprise  and  delight  "  when  he  first  met  and  lived 
with  man  in  a  state  of  nature — ^with  absolutely 
uncontaminated  savages.  The  wild  Indians  of 
the  Uaupes  were  different  from  any  he  had 
previously  met  during  two  years'  wanderings. 

"  They  had  nothing  that  we  call  clothes ; 
they  had  peculiar  ornaments,  tribal  marks,  etc., 
they  all  carried  weapons  or  tools  of  their  own 
manufacture  ;  they  were  living  in  a  large  house, 
many  families  together,  quite  unlike  the  hut  of 
the  tame  Indians  ;  but  more  than  all  their  whole 
aspect  and  manner  were  different — they  were  all 
going  about  their  own  work  or  pleasure  which  had 
nothing  to  do  with  white  men  or  their  ways,  they 
walked  with  the  free  step  of  the  forest  dweller, 
and  except  the  few  who  were  known  to  my  com- 
panions, paid  no  attention  whatever  to  us,  mere 
strangers  of  an  alien  race.  In  every  detail  they 
were  original  and  self-sustaining,  as  are  the  wild 
animals  of  the  forests,  absolutely  independent  of 
civilisation,  and  who  could  and  did  live  their  own 
lives  in  their  own  way  as  they  had  done  for 
countless  generations  before  America  was  dis- 
covered. I  could  not  have  believed  there  could 
be  so  much  difference  in  the  aspect  of  the  same 
people  in  their  native  state  and  when  living  under 
European  supervision.     The  true  denizens  of  the 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

Amazonian  forest,  like  the  forest  itself,  are  unique 
and  not  to  be  forgotten." 

Amidst  such  scenes  and  among  such  people 
Wallace  spent  four-and-a-half  years,  often  under- 
going many  hardships,  exploring  regions  not 
before  visited  by  white  men  ;  all  the  time  collect- 
ing and  studying  the  varied  forms  of  life  with 
which  the  forest  glades  and  river  banks  abounded. 
He  journeyed  for  many  thousand  miles  in  canoes 
on  the  great  rivers,  taking  observations  with 
sextant  and  compass  of  the  courses  of  the  Rio 
Negro  and  of  the  Uaupes  which  formed  the  basis 
for  the  first  reliable  map  of  those  hitherto  little 
known  waterways. 

His  voyage  home  from  Para  in  1852  was  both 
adventurous  and  disastrous.  After  having  been 
at  sea  a  week,  the  ship  caught  fire,  and  all  hands 
had  to  take  to  the  boats.  The  vessel,  with  all 
its  cargo — including  Wallace's  collections,  and 
most  of  his  notes  and  journals — ^was  completely 
destroyed,  and  the  crew,  with  only  their  clothes 
and  a  small  quantity  of  provisions,  were  tossed 
about  in  the  middle  of  the  Atlantic  in  two  small 
boats  for  ten  days.  And  when  at  last  they  were 
picked  up  by  a  passing  vessel  their  danger  and 
troubles  were  not  yet  over,  for  the  ship  on 
which  they  found  themselves  was  very  unsea- 
worthy,  and  they  encountered  such  violent  storms 
that  no  one  expected  to  reach  land.  His  com- 
panions often  wished  themselves  back  in  their 
open  boats  as  being  safer  than  the  rotten  and 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

overloaded  vessel  they  were  on.  To  add  to  their 
discomfort  the  ship  was  short  of  provisions,  so 
that  they  had  to  endure  semi-starvation  during 
the  rest  of  their  tedious  journey. 

After  eighty-two  days  at  sea  Wallace  at  last 
landed  at  Deal,  with  only  the  clothes  he  stood 
in,  and  a  few  sketches  of  palm  trees  and  of  fishes 
which  he  had  saved  out  of  the  wreckage  of  so 
many  hopes  and  labours.  The  valuable  collec- 
tion of  four  years'  toil,  the  immediate  results  of 
patiently  acquired  knowledge,  with  the  notes  and 
journals  of  the  greater  part  of  his  wanderings, 
were  irretrievably  lost.  One  can,  without  much 
imagination,  picture  his  feelings  under  such  a 
crushing  blow.  Luckily,  through  the  foresight 
of  his  agent  in  London,  his  collections  had  been 
insured  for  a  small  amount,  so  that  his  losses 
financially  were  not  so  complete  as  he  at  first  had 
feared  ;  yet  no  monetary  recompense  could  ever 
make  up  for  the  loss  of  the  material  and  the 
records  of  his  arduous  exploration  and  research. 
Soon  after  his  return,  with  the  aid  of  such 
scanty  notes  as  he  had  saved,  and  the  letters 
which  he  had  sent  home,  he  commenced  to  write 
the  story  of  his  travels,  which  was  published  in 
1853.  He  also  published  an  account  of  the  palm 
trees  of  the  Amazon,  with  illustrations  from  his 
own  sketches. 

In  1854  he  again  left  Britain,  and,  travelling  east- 
wards, arrived  in  Singapore,  where  he  was  to  begin 
his  eight  years'  wanderings  amongst  the  islands 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

of  the  Malay  Archipelago,  an  account  of  which 
is  recorded  in  his  most  popular  work  of  that  name. 

It  was  while  staying  in  Sarawak,  in  1855 — 
where  he  became  intimately  acquainted  with  the 
celebrated  Rajah  Brooke — that  he  wrote  his  first 
article  on  the  question  of  the  Origin  of  Species.  At 
that  time,  however,  he  had  not  grasped  the  com- 
plete solution  of  the  problem.  It  was  not  till  1858, 
when  at  Ternate,  suffering  from  an  attack  of  fever, 
that,  pondering  over  the  subject,  and  recollecting 
Malthus's  writings,  the  modus  operandi  of  evolu- 
tion flashed  with  creative  vividness  upon  his 
mind,  resulting  in  the  paper  which,  together  with 
Darwin's  contribution,  was  to  startle  the  scientific 
and  religious  worlds,  and  set  ablaze  the  fires  of  a 
controversy  which  burned  fbr  many  years,  ere 
the  doctrine  of  "  survival  of  the  fittest "  was 
finally  accepted  by  the  world  at  large. 

Wallace  sent  his  paper  to  Charles  Darwin, 
with  whom  he  had  corresponded  about  the 
previous  article.  Darwin,  as  the  result  of  long 
and  laborious  study,  had  already  arrived  at  the 
same  conclusions,  and  had  even  taken  his  friends 
Lyell  and  Hooker  into  his  confidence  ;  but  in 
spite  of  their  advice  and  their  fears  that  he  might 
be  forestalled,  he  wished  to  collect  still  more 
evidence  to  support  his  theory  before  making  it 
public.  On  receiving  Wallace's  paper  he  wrote 
to  Sir  Charles  Lyell :  "  Your  words  have  come 
true  with  a  vengeance — that  I  should  be  fore- 
stalled. I  never  saw  a  more  striking  coincidence." 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

Darwin  who  had  already  written  a  large  part 
of  a  book  dealing  with  his  conclusions,  was  natur- 
ally much  troubled  as  to  what  he  should  do.  In 
another  letter  to  Lyell  he  wrote  :  "I  would  far 
rather  burn  my  whole  book  than  that  Wallace  or 
any  other  man  should  think  that  I  had  behaved 
in  a  paltry  spirit." 

Ultimately,  however,  as  a  result  of  the 
advice  of  friends,  who  acted  on  their  own  respon- 
sibility, Mr.  Wallace's  essay  and  extracts  from 
Darwin's  manuscript  were  sent  to  the  Linnean 
Society  and  read  together  before  that  Society 
in  July,  1858. 

The  interest  excited  by  the  papers  was 
intense.  Many  lingered  after  the  meeting  and 
discussed  the  subject  with  bated  breath  ;  but  it 
was  meanwhile  too  novel  and  too  ominous  to 
provoke  that  immediate  opposition  with  which 
it  met  when  its  significance  and  effect  were 
subsequently  realised. 

Wallace  spent  another  eight  adventurous 
and  arduous  years  amidst  scenes  of  tropical  lux- 
uriance and  among  the  various  savage  and  civi- 
lised races  of  mankind  which  inhabit  the  Malay 
Archipelago,  before  he  returned  home  in  1862. 

The  collections  he  had  sent  home,  comprising 
many  thousands  of  insects,  birds,  and  other 
forms  of  life,  many  of  them  previously  un- 
known, together  with  the  scientific  papers  already 
mentioned,  had  made  him  famous,  and  secured 
for    him    on    his    return    not    only   his    admit- 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

tance  to  many  of  the  great  learned  societies,  but 
the  acquaintance  and  friendship  of  the  scientific 
leaders  of  the  day  with  whom  he  was  soon  to 
rank  in  undisputed  parity.  Amongst  those  with 
whom  his  intimacy  deepened  most  fruitfully 
were  Sir  Charles  Lyell  and  Charles  Darwin. 

With  the  former,  Wallace  had  a  long,  amic- 
able, but  controversial  discussion  on  the  subject 
of  the  glacial  origin  of  Alpine  lakes,  which  Lyell 
was  not  then  inclined  to  accept.  At  Sir  Charles's 
house,  where  he  was  a  frequent  visitor,  Wallace 
met  many  interesting  people,  amongst  them 
being  Professor  Tyndall,  Sir  Charles  Wheat- 
stone,  Mr.  Lecky,  and  the  Duke  of  Argyll,  with 
all  of  whom  he  became  on  friendly  terms. 

With  Charles  Darwin,  Wallace's  relations 
were  still  more  intimate  and  friendly,  and  their 
rivalry  in  their  great  discovery  rather  enhanced 
their  friendship  instead  of  producing  that  an- 
tagonism which,  on  smaller  minds,  would  have 
been  the  result.  Darwin  frequently  asked  Wal- 
lace's help  on  points  of  difficulty  in  the  appli- 
cation of  the  new  theory,  and  though  on  several 
questions  they  disagreed,  they  always  maintained 
the  warmest  admiration  for  each  other. 

In  a  letter  to  Wallace  written  in  1870,  Darwin 
says  : 

"  I  hope  it  is  a  satisfaction  to  you  to  reflect 
— and  very  few  things  in  my  life  have  been  more 
satisfactory  to  me — that  we  have  never  felt 
any    jealousy    towards    each    other,    though    in 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

some  senses  rivals.  I  believe  I  can  say  this  of 
myself  with  truth,  and  I  am  absolutely  sure  that 
it  is  true  of  you." 

In  commenting  on  this  letter  Dr.  Wallace 
writes  : 

"  To  have  thus  inspired  and  retained  this 
friendly  feeling,  notwithstanding  our  many 
differences  of  opinion,  I  feel  to  be  one  of  the 
greatest  honours  of  my  life." 

The  relations  existing  between  Darwin  and 
Wallace,  to  which  we  have  already  referred,  are 
further  exemplified  by  the  affectionate  love  and 
warm  admiration  expressed  in  their  letters  to 
each  other,  and  to  mutual  friends. 

Referring  to  the  proposal  by  Lyell  and 
Hooker  that  Wallace's  paper  and  an  abstract  of 
his  own  MS.  should  be  read  together  before 
the  Linnean  Society,  Darwin,  in  his  autobio- 
graphy writes  : 

"  I  was  at  first  very  unwilling  to  consent,  as 
I  thought  Mr.  Wallace  might  consider  my  doing 
so  unjustifiable,  for  I  did  not  then  know  how 
generous  and  noble  was  his  disposition  "  ("  Life 
and  Letters,"  i.  85.) 

While  Wallace  was  still  abroad,  and  before 
Darwin  and  he  had  met,  Darwin  wrote  to  Lyell 
of  having  received  a  letter  from  Wallace,  "very 
just  in  his  remarks,  though  too  laudatory  and 
too  modest  ;  and  how  admirably  free  from 
envy  and  jealousy.     He  must  be  a  good  fellow." 

And  in  replying  to  Wallace,  Darwin  says  : 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

"  Before  telling  you  about  the  progress  of 
opinion  on  the  subject  (of  '  The  Origin  of 
Species  ')  you  must  let  me  say  how  I  admire 
the  generous  manner  in  which  you  speak  of 
my  book.  Most  persons  would,  in  your  position, 
have  felt  some  envy  or  jealousy.  How  nobly 
free  you  seem  to  be  of  this  common  failing  of 
mankind  !  But  you  speak  far  too  modestly  of 
yourself.  You  would,  if  you  had  my  leisure, 
have  done  the  work  just  as  well — perhaps  better 
than  I  have  done  it."  He  ends  "  with  sincere 
thanks  for  your  letter  and  with  most  deeply  felt 
wishes  for  your  success  in  science,  and  in  every 
way,  believe  me,  your  sincere  well  wisher." 

And  in  writing  to  H.  W.  Bates,  Darwin  said  : 
"  What  a  fine  philosophical  mind  your  friend 
Mr.  Wallace  has,  and  he  has  acted  in  relation  to 
me  like  a  true  man  with  a  noble  spirit." 

Mr.  Wallace  differed  from  Darwin  in  believ- 
ing that  something  more  than  Natural  Selection 
was  necessary  to  produce  the  higher  intellec- 
tual qualities  of  man.  This  was  the  "  heresy  " 
to  which  he  refers  in  a  note  to  Darwin  relating 
to  an  article  by  the  latter,  where  he  says  : 

"  I  have  also  to  thank  you  for  the  great 
tenderness  with  which  you  have  treated  me  and 
my  heresies  .  .  .  "  ;  to  which  Darwin  replied, 
"  Your  note  has  given  me  very  great  pleasure, 
chiefly  because  I  was  so  anxious  not  to  treat 
you  with  the  least  disrespect,  and  it  is  so  dif- 
ficult   to    speak     fairly    when    differing    from 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

anyone.  If  I  had  offended  you  it  would  have 
grieved  me  more  than  you  will  readily  believe." 
("  Life  and  Letters,"  iii.  134). 

When  Darwin  heard  from  Mr.  Gladstone 
that  a  Government  pension  had  been  given  to 
Wallace — in  which  matter  Darwin  himself  had 
been  largely  instrumental — ^he  wrote  to  a  friend, 
"  Good  heavens  !   how  pleased  I  am." 

This  admirable  desire  to  give  each  other  the 
credit  for  the  theory  of  Natural  Selection  is 
shown  again  and  again  in  their  letters,  and  it 
should  be  emphasised  here. 

"  You  ought  not,"  Darwin  wrote,  "to  speak 
of  the  theory  as  mine  ;  it  is  just  as  much  yours 
as  mine.  One  correspondent  has  already  noticed 
to  me  your  '  high-minded '  conduct  on  this 
head."     ("  More  Letters,"  ii.  32.) 

And  Wallace,  in  a  long  letter,  replied  : 

"As  to  the  theory  of  Natural  Selection 
itself  I  shall  always  maintain  it  to  be  actually 
yours,  and  yours  only.  You  had  worked  it  out 
in  details  I  had  never  thought  of  years  before 
I  had  a  ray  of  light  on  the  subject.  .  .  .  All 
the  merit  I  claim  is  the  having  been  the  means 
of  inducing  you  to  write  and  publish  at  once." 

Again  in  a  letter  referring  to  colouring  of 
mammals  and   kindred  subjects,  Darwin  wrote  : 

"  I  am  surprised  at  my  own  stupidity,  but 
I  have  long  recognised  how  much  clearer  and 
deeper  your  insight  into  matters  is  than  mine." 
("  More  Letters,"  ii.  61.)     And,  when  they  dif- 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

fered  over  Sexual  Selection,  Darwin  wrote  :  "  I 
grieve  to  differ  from  you,  and  it  actually  terri- 
fies me,  and  makes  me  constantly  distrust 
myself.  I  fear  we  shall  never  quite  understand 
each  other."     ("  More  Letters,"  ii.  85.) 

'Although  Darwin  and  Wallace  worked  to- 
gether so  long  and  assiduously  to  develop  and 
elucidate  the  theory  they  had  originated,  there 
were  several  points  in  its  application  in  which 
they  differed,  and  as  these,  though  not  in  any 
way  affecting  the  main  principles  of  Natural  Selec- 
tion (on  which  they  entirely  agreed),  have 
been  seized  upon  and  have  been  magnified  by 
those  who  objected  to  the  theory,  we  should 
dwell  a  moment  upon  them. 

The  principal  differences  may  be  stated  thus  : 
Darwin  thought  that  Natural  Selection  alone 
was  sufficient  to  explain  the  development  of 
man,  in  all  his  aspects,  from  some  lower  form. 
Wallace,  while  believing  that  man,  as  an  animal, 
was  so  developed,  thought  that  as  an  intellec- 
tual and  moral  being  some  other  influence — some 
spiritual  influx — ^was  required  to  account  for  his 
special  mental  and  psychic  nature.  With  regard 
to  many  cases  of  coloration,  scent,  or  power  of 
producing  sounds,  exhibited  by  the  males  of 
numerous  animals,  Darwin  thought  they  were 
developed  by  the  choice  of  the  females  for  the 
males  which  were  endowed  by  these  qualities  in 
the  greatest  degree,  while  those  which  had  them 
in  a  less  degree  were  not  chosen,  and  so  did 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

not  so  often  produce  offspring.  Wallace,  on  the 
other  hand,  could  find  little  or  no  evidence  for 
this  form  of  Sexual  Selection.  He  maintained 
that  all  such  colours,  scents,  etc.,  were  produced 
by  some  operation  of  Natural  Selection  ;  that  with 
insects  a  bright  colour  was  often  a  warning  to 
insect-eating  animals  that  its  possessor  was 
distasteful ;  that  the  females  required  more 
protection,  and  therefore  became  coloured  to 
harmonise  with  their  surroundings.  The  males, 
owing  to  their  habits  and  organisation,  require 
less  protection,  and  would  therefore  be  modified 
no  further  than  was  sufficient  to  ensure  the 
maintenance  of  the  speciesA 

Darwin  explained  the  presence  of  Arctic  plants 
in  the  Southern  hemisphere  and  upon  moun- 
tain tops  in  the  tropics,  by  assuming  that  the 
tropical  lowlands  of  the  whole  earth  were  cooled 
during  the  glacial  epoch,  so  that  these  plants 
could  spread  to  the  localities  where  they  are  now 
found  isolated.  Wallace,  from  his  study  of  the 
floras  of  oceanic  islands,  concluded  that  all  these 
plants  were  introduced  by  means  of  aerial  trans- 
mission of  seeds  or  by  birds,  those  seeds  which 
were  deposited  in  a  suitable  soil  and  climate 
germinating  and  in  turn  producing  seeds  by  which 
the  plant  would  spread  over  its  new  habitat. 

The  only  other  important  matter  on  which 
these  two  great  scientists  differed  was  the  ques- 
tion of  the  inheritance  of  acquired  characters. 
Darwin  always  believed  that  the  effects  of  use 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

or  disuse,  of  climate,  food,  etc.,  on  the  indivi- 
dual were  transmitted  to  the  offspring ;  and 
Wallace  himself  accepted  this  theory  for  many 
years.  But  later,  after  Dr.  Weismann  *  had 
shown  how  little  evidence  there  was  for  such 
inheritance,  he  became  convinced  that  acquired 
characters  were  not  inherited. 

All  this  shows  in  a  very  clear  light  the  un- 
selfish characters  and  singleness  of  purpose  of 
two  great  minds,  who  set  the  dissemination  of 
truth  and  the  illumination  of  intellect  above 
considerations  of  personal  profit  or  reputation. 

Amongst  the  celebrities  with  whom  Wallace 
had  frequent  intercourse  were  Herbert  Spencer, 
Thomas  Huxley,  Sir  John  Lubbock  (after- 
wards Lord  Avebury),  Dr.  W.  B.  Carpenter,  Sir 
William  Crookes,  Sir  Joseph  Hooker,  Sir  Francis 
Galton,  and  many  others  not  less  famous. 

In  1865  he  married  the  eldest  daughter  of 
Mr.  William  Mitten,  of  Hurstpierpoint,  the 
greatest  living  authority  on  mosses  ;  and  for  the 
next   five   years   lived   in   St.    Mark's   Crescent, 

*  Dr.  Weismann  writes  ("  Cambridge  Comm. 
Essays  ")  :  "  Everyone  knows  that  Darwin  was  not 
alone  in  discovering  the  principle  of  selection,  and 
that  the  same  idea  occurred  .  .  .  independently  to 
Alfred  Russel  Wallace.  ...  It  is  a  splendid  proof 
of  the  magnanimity  of  these  two  investigators  that 
they  thus,  in  all  friendliness,  and  without  envy,  united 
in  laying  their  ideas  before  a  scientific  tribunal  ;  their 
names  will  always  shine  side  by  side  as  two  of  the 
brightest  stars  in  the  scientific  sky." 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

Regent's  Park.  Becoming,  however,  tired  of 
town  life,  and  wishing  to  return  to  more  con- 
genial rural  surroundings,  he  moved  to  Grays,  in 
Essex,  where  he  built  a  house  close  to  an  old  over- 
grown chalk  pit,  which  formed  part  of  the  garden. 

During  his  residence  here  he  wrote  an  impor- 
tant book,  in  two  large  volumes,  with  elaborate 
maps  and  illustrations,  dealing  with  a  subject  on 
which  he  has  always  been  admitted  to  be  the  lead- 
ing authority,  viz.  "  The  Geographical  Distribu- 
tion of  Animals."  It  was  published  in  1876,  and 
still  remains  the  standard  work  in  the  English 
language  on  that  branch  of  science.  From  this 
time  onwards  he  devoted  most  of  his  energies 
to  writing — at  first  on  purely  scientific  subjects, 
but  later  on  more  general  topics,  and  especially 
on  social  and  political  questions,  which  gradu- 
ally assumed  a  leading  place  in  his  thought. 

Amongst  other  scientific  works  which  he  pro- 
duced at  this  period  were  "  Tropical  Nature  " 
and  "  Australasia  "  in  1878  ;  "  Island  Life  "  in 
1880.  His  most  popular  book,  "  The  Malay 
Archipelago,"  was  written  while  he  still  lived  in 
London  in  1869,  and  gave  an  account  of  his 
travels  and  adventures  in  the  East. 

In  1876  he  found  it  necessary  to  give  up  his 
house  at  Grays,  and,  after  living  a  few  years  at 
Dorking  and  at  Croydon,  he  built  a  cottage  at 
Godalming,  where  he  remained  from  188 1  till  1889. 

In  188 1  a  society  was  formed  for  advocating 
the   Nationalisation  of  the  Land,   a  subject  in 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

which  he  took  a  deep  interest,  and  he  was  elected 
president,  retaining  that  office  until  the  present 
time.  There  is  no  doubt  that  his  early  ex- 
periences while  surveying,  and  his  observations  of 
the  life  and  customs  of  many  civilised  and  savage 
races,  had  left  upon  his  mind  those  impressions 
which  were  to  be  developed  into  definite  principles 
and  beliefs  when  he  devoted  close  attention  to 
this  and  kindred  subjects,  at  the  time  we  are 
dealing  with.  With  the  exception  of  about  eight 
years,  he  has  spent  the  whole  of  his  long  life  in 
the  country,  and  his  powers  of  keen  observation 
have  shown  him  the  inconveniences,  the  hardship 
and  the  injustice  often  suffered  by  our  rural 
population  on  account  of  the  existing  system  of 
the  private  ownership  of  land,  with  the  privileges 
which  have  grown  up  along  with  it. 

In  order  to  justify  the  formation  of  this 
society,  and  as  a  kind  of  programme  of  the 
work  it  had  to  do,  he  wrote  a  brochure 
entitled  "  Land  Nationalisation  :  Its  Necessity 
and  Its  Aims."  This  formed  the  starting-point  of 
those  political  writings  of  his  which  have  caused 
such  mixed  feelings  amongst  his  scientific  friends, 
many  of  whom  deplore  his  views  as  unscien- 
tific and  revolutionary,  while  others  are  no  less 
unstinted  in  their  praise  and  satisfaction. 

The  beginning  of  his  social  views  he  himself 
traces  to  Herbert  Spencer's  "  Social  Statics," 
which  he  read  soon  after  his  return  from  the 
Amazon.  That  part  on  The  Right  to  Use  the  Earth 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

especially  interested  him,  but  under  the  influence 
of  Mill  and  Spencer  himself,  he  could  not  see  how 
to  work  it  out  without  an  excess  of  bureaucracy. 
It  was  twenty-seven  years  later  that  the  idea 
suddenly  came  to  him  that  this  difficulty  "  could 
be  overcome  by  State  tenancy  of  the  bare  land, 
with  ownership  by  the  tenant  of  all  that  was 
added  to  the  bare  land,  so  that  the  State  was 
only  ground  landlord,  and  need  not  interfere 
at  all  with  the  tenant  who  held  a  perpetual 
lease."     ("My  Life,"  ii.  34.) 

In  the  book  on  "  Land  Nationalisation,"  he 
dealt  at  length  with  these  subjects.  But  his 
objection  to  Socialism  remained  for  about  ten 
years  later,  because  he  could  not  see  the  way  out 
of  existing  things  and  relations  into  the  practical 
operation  of  socialistic  principles.  Bellamy's 
book  gave  him  the  final  impact,  and,  he  says, 
"  I  have  been  an  absolutely  convinced  Socialist 
ever  since."  He  was  supported  in  his  step  by 
Spencer's  teaching  that  all  classes  of  society  were 
almost  equal  morally  and  intellectually,  in  com- 
bination with  Weissman's  proof  of  the  non- 
heredity  of  results  of  education,  habit,  use  of 
organs,  etc.  Dr.  Wallace  has  briefly  defined 
Socialism  as  "  the  organisation  of  the  labour  of 
all  for  the  equal  benefit  of  all."  This  implies  "  the 
duty  of  everyone  to  work  for  the  common  good, 
and  the  right  of  each  to  share  equally  in  the  benefits 
so  produced,  and  in  those  which  Nature  provides." 

An  address  which  he  gave  at  Davos  in  1896 

xxxii 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

on  the  invitation  of  Dr.  Lunn,  was  the  starting- 
point  of  the  three  last  important  works  which  he 
has  written. 

The  first  of  these  was  "  The  Wonderful 
Century,"  which  was  an  account  of  the  marvellous 
advances  in  scientific  knowledge  and  in  invention 
which  had  taken  place  during  the  nineteenth 
century,  of  most  of  which  he  had  been  an  eye- 
witness. The  astronomical  chapters  of  this  book 
suggested  the  second,  namely,  "  Man's  Place  in 
the  Universe,"  which  appeared  in  1903.  This 
latter  work  gave  a  most  interesting  study  of  the 
latest  theories  and  facts  with  regard  to  the  stellar 
universe,  and  the  solar  system  and  our  position 
therein. 

Dr.  Russel  Wallace  arrives  at  the  conclusion 
that  this  earth  is  the  only  inhabited  planet  in 
our  solar  system — probably,  indeed,  the  only  one 
inhabited  by  beings  of  a  high  order  in  the  whole 
vast  universal  scheme  ;  and  that  it  is  legitimate 
to  suppose  that  the  purpose  of  the  universe  was 
the  production  of  man  as  a  spiritual  being.  He 
showed  that  man's  position,  with  regard  to  both 
the  solar  system  and  the  whole  universe,  was 
unique,  pointing  to  the  probability  of  design  and 
intention  on  the  part  of  some  Controlling  Mind. 

This  idea  was  further  developed  and  extended 
in  his  last  scientific  book  "  The  World  of  Life," 
which  appeared  in  191 1,  its  germ  being  the  lecture 
which  he  delivered  at  the  Royal  Institution  in 
the  previous  year.     It  was  the  act  of  collecting 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

the  evidence  of  this  work  and  "  Man's  Place  in  the 
Universe,"  from  all  the  best  scientific  sources  to 
which  he  had  access,  that  forced  upon  him  "  the 
wonderful  combination  of  conditions  necessary 
for  the  possible  development  of  life  ;  and  the  still 
more  marvellous  and  ever  present  manifestations 
of  foreseeing,  directing  and  organising  forces, 
resulting  in  a  World  of  Life  culminating  in  Man, 
and  in  every  detail  adapted  for  the  development 
of  man's  highest  mental  and  moral  powers." 

"  Thus,"  as  he  himself  writes  (letter  to  the 
present  writer),  "  the  completely  materialistic 
mind  of  my  youth  and  early  manhood  has  been 
slowly  moulded  into  the  socialistic,  spiritualistic, 
and  theistic  mind  I  now  exhibit — a  mind  which 
is,  as  my  scientific  friends  think,  so  weak  and 
credulous  in  its  declining  years,  as  to  believe  that 
fruits  and  flowers,  domestic  animals,  glorious 
birds  and  insects,  wool,  cotton,  sugar  and  rubber, 
metals  and  gems,  were  all  foreseen  and  fore- 
ordained for  the  education  and  enjoyment  of 
man." 

At  a  later  date,  in  May,  1913,  in  another 
letter  to  the  writer.  Dr.  Russel  Wallace  writes 
upon  the  possibility  of  a  living  organism  being 
some  day  produced  in  the  laboratory  of  the  chemist 
from  inorganic  matter.  He  declares  it  to  be  im- 
possible, because  unthinkable,  while  even  were  it 
supposable  that  it  should  happen,  it  could  not  in 
anyway  explain  Life,  with  all  its  inherent  forces, 
powers  and  laws,  which  necessitate  "  a  constantly 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

acting  mind  power  of  almost  unimaginable 
grandeur  and  prescience,  in  the  co-ordinated 
motions,  action  and  forces  of  the  myriad 
millions  of  cells,  each  cell  consisting  of  myriad 
atoms  and  ions,  which  cannot  be  supposed  to  be 
all  acting  in  harmonious  co-ordination  without 
some  superior  co-ordinating  power. 

"  Recent  discoveries  demonstrate  the  need  of 
co-ordinating  power  even  in  the  very  nature  and 
origin  of  matter  ;  and  something  far  more  than 
this  in  the  origin  and  development  of  mind. 
The  whole  cumulative  argument  of  my  '  World 
of  Life  '  is  that,  in  its  every  detail  it  calls  for  the 
agency  of  a  mind  or  minds  so  enormously  above 
and  beyond  any  human  minds,  as  to  compel  us 
to  look  upon  it,  or  them,  as  '  God  or  Gods,'  and 
so-called  '  Laws  of  Nature  '  as  the  action  by  will- 
power or  otherwise  of  such  superhuman  or 
infinite  beings.  '  Laws  of  Nature  '  apart  from 
the  existence  and  agency  of  some  such  Being  or 
Beings,  are  mere  words,  that  explain  nothing 
— are,  in  fact,  unthinkable.  That  is  my 
position  ! 

"  Whether  this  '  Unknown  Reality  '  is  a  single 
Being,  and  acts  everywhere  in  the  universe  as 
direct  creator,  organiser  and  director  of  every 
minutest  motion  in  the  whole  of  our  universe, 
and  of  all  possible  universes,  or  whether  it  acts 
through  variously  conditioned  modes,  as  H. 
Spencer  suggested,  or  through  '  infinite  grades 
of  beings  '  as  I  suggest,  comes  to  much  the  same 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

thing.  Mine  seems  a  more  clear  and  intelligible 
supposition  as  stated  in  the  last  paragraph  of 
my  '  World  of  Life,'  and  it  is  the  teaching  of  the 
Bible,  of  Swedenborg,  and  of  Milton  !  " 

But  in  the  very  last  paragraph  of  his  "  World 
of  Life  "  he  puts  it  as  "  a  speculative  suggestion," 
not  as  a  definite  scientific  conclusion — "  though 
it  does  seem  to  me  to  be  one." 

He  concludes  (in  the  letter  to  the  writer) 
with  this  definite  declaration  : 

"  I  write  all  this  to  show  that,  to  me,  if  the 
chemist  does  some  day  show  that  living,  developing 
'  life  '  was,  and  is  now  produced  from  inorganic 
elements,  by  and  through  '  natural  laws,'  it  would 
not  alter  my  argument  one  iota.  *  Natural  Laws  ' 
of  such  range  and  power  are  unthinkable,  except 
as  the  manifestation  of  Universal  Mind" 

"  The  World  of  Life "  moved  the  whole 
thinking  world.  It  awoke  as  with  the  whip  crack 
of  a  prophet's  word  the  theological  sleepers  who 
had  been  drowsing  in  dogmatic  ease,  and  that 
other  loud  boasting  company  of  the  blind  who 
confidently  thought  they  were  wide  awake  when 
they  denied  the  possibility  of  the  very  existence 
of  a  spiritual  world  and  believed  that  "  matter 
and  force  "  were  sufficient  for  all  things,  from 
cosmic  dust  to  the  writing  of  Hamlet. 

This  book  was  a  revelation  of  the  making 
of  humanity,  not  starting  from  any  basis  of 
dogmatic  preconception,  but  reasoned  out  by  the 
clear  mind  of  the  trained  natural  observer,  who. 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

turning  his  searchlight  upon  the  footprints  of  the 
long-departed  revealed,  as  the  skilled  hand  drew 
aside  the  curtain,  the  picture  of  the  actual 
world  in  process  of  evolution,  thus,  by  a  master- 
stroke, involving  the  exercise  of  all  his  powers, 
displaying  eternal  Providence,  and  "  justifying 
the  ways  of  God  to  man."  The  earliest  result  of 
the  evolution  theory  seemed  to  be  that  earth 
was  filled,  not  with  the  knowledge  but  with  the 
terrors  of  God,  and  the  human  heart  heard,  if 
it  could  listen  to  their  agonies  and  groans,  of 
a  struggling  and  suffering  humanity  punished  for 
its  own  blindness  and  ignorance. 

With  Wallace,  however,  pain  is  the  birth-cry 
of  a  soul's  advance.  "  The  stamp  of  rank  in  Nature 
is  capacity  for  pain."  Pain,  he  holds,  is  always 
strictly  subordinated  to  the  law  of  utility,  and  is 
never  developed  beyond  what  is  actually  needed 
for  the  protection  and  advance  of  life.  This  brings 
the  sensitive  soul  immense  relief.  Our  suscepti- 
bility to  the  higher  agonies  is  a  condition  of  our 
advance  in  life's  pageant. 

In  this  volume  he  summed  up  and  completed 
his  fifty  years  of  brooding  thought  and  long 
and  patient  labour  on  behalf  of  the  Darwinian 
theory  of  evolution,  extending  the  scope  and 
application  of  that  theory  so  as  to  show  that  it 
can  and  does  explain  many  of  the  phenomena  of 
living  things  hitherto  considered  to  be  outside  its 
range. 

Thus  Dr.  Wallace  now  believes  that  to  explain 

/  xxxvii 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

life  and  its  manifestations  God  is  a  necessary 
postulate.     And  he  here  declares  : 

"  The  absolute  necessity  for  an  organising 
and  directive  Life  Principle  in  order  to  account 
for  the  very  possibility  of  these  complex  out- 
growths. I  argue  that  they  imply,  first,  a  Creative 
Power,  which  so  constituted  matter  as  to  render 
these  marvels  possible  ;  next,  a  Directive  Mind, 
which  is  demanded  at  every  step  of  what  we  term 
growth,  and  often  look  upon  as  so  simple  and 
natural  a  process  as  to  require  no  explanation ; 
and,  lastly,  an  Ultimate  Purpose,  in  the  very 
existence  of  the  whole  vast  life-world,  in  all  its 
long  course  of  evolution  through  the  aeons  of  geo- 
logical time.  This  Purpose,  which  alone  throws 
light  on  many  of  the  mysteries  of  its  modes  of 
evolution,  I  hold  to  be  the  Development  of  Man, 
the  one  crowning  product  of  the  whole  cosmic 
process  of  life-development ;  the  only  being  which 
can  to  some  extent  comprehend  Nature  ;  which 
can  perceive  and  trace  out  her  modes  of  action  ; 
which  can  appreciate  the  hidden  forces  and 
motions  everywhere  at  work,  and  can  deduce 
from  them  a  supreme  over-ruling  Mind  as  their 
necessary  Cause." 

The  result  of  his  investigation  into  spiritual- 
istic manifestations  led  him  to  believe  in  the 
genuineness  of  their  spiritual  origin,  and  he 
embodied  them  in  his  book  "  Miracles  and 
Modern  Spiritualism."  If  his  political  works 
produced  feelings  of  regret  amongst  many  of  his 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

scientific  friends,  his  advocacy  of  spiritualism 
caused  them  (as  Tyndall  said)  "  feeHngs  of  deep 
disappointment."  He  was  not,  however,  without 
able  supporters  in  his  "  heresy,"  amongst  them 
being  Sir  W.  Crookes,  Sir  William  Barrett,  Lord 
Lindsay,  Robert  Chambers,  and  others. 

Through  his  spiritualistic  experience — of  the 
actuality  of  which  he  was  entirely  convinced — 
he  deduced  a  system  of  spiritual  media,  an 
angelology  whereby  the  vast  Divine  Mind  operates 
upon  and  communicates  with  "  every  cell  of  every 
living  thing  that  is,  or  ever  has  been,  upon  the 
earth  .  .  .  through  many  descending  grades  of 
intelligence  and  power."  He  makes  therefore 
his  own,  that  which  is,  in  effect,  a  summary  of 
his  teaching  : — 

"  All  nature  is  but  art,  unknown  to  thee, 
All  chance,  direction  which  thou  canst  not  see ; 
All  discord,  harmony  not  understood ; 
All  partial  evil,  universal  good," 

And  therein  he  stands  to-day  the  Grand  Old 
Man  of  British  Science,  a  true  Revealer  and 
Prophet,  in  the  real  sense  of  being  a  forthteller 
of  the  truth  spoken  to  him. 

Dr.  Wallace  has  written  many  articles  and 
smaller  books  on  diverse  subjects,  the  latest, 
which  has  aroused  deep  and  widespread  interest, 
being  his  "  Social  Environment  and  Moral 
Progress,"  which  was  written  in  his  ninety-first 
year.     In  it  he  shows  that  there  is  no  evidence 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

of  any  advancement  in  man's  intellectual  or 
ethical  manifestation  during  the  whole  historical 
period,  and  he  states  his  belief  that  no  real  im- 
provement is  possible  until  we  reorganise  society 
on  a  rational  basis  of  mutual  help,  instead  of  our 
present  system  of  mutual  antagonism  and  de- 
grading competition. 

As  has  been  well  said — in  a  review  of  this 
work  : — 

"  The  author's  position  as  co-discoverer  with 
Darwin  of  one  of  the  most  momentous  theories 
in  the  history  of  thought,  his  venerable  age,  his 
wide  scientific  knowledge  and  deep  philosophic 
insight,  lend  to  his  utterances  an  authority 
such  as  could  be  claimed  by  no  living  writer." 

His  indictment  of  the  present  social  environ- 
ment as  the  worst  in  history  constitutes  a  chal- 
lenge to  civilisation,  and  demands  the  closest 
scrutiny  of  the  most  impartial  minds.  He  shows 
that  it  is  well  established  that  the  essential 
character  of  man — intellectual,  emotional,  and 
moral — is  inherent  in  him  from  birth  ;  that  it 
is  subject  to  great  variation  from  individual  to 
individual,  and  that  its  manifestations  in  con- 
duct can  be  modified  in  a  very  high  degree  by  the 
influence  of  public  opinion  and  by  education. 
These  latter  changes,  however,  are  not  here- 
ditary, and  it  follows  that  no  definite  advance 
in  morals  can  occur  in  any  race  unless  there  is 
some  selective  or  segregative  agency  at  work.  He 
declares  that  history  shows  that  the  increase  of 

xl 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

wealth  and  luxury  has  been  distributed  with 
gross  injustice,  no  provision  having  been  made 
for  the  overflow  of  these  being  utilised  for  the 
greater  happiness  and  comfort  of  the  producers, 
or  the  improvement  of  the  condition  of  the 
struggling  millions. 

He  finds  the  "  selective  agency  "  which  is  to 
work  for  the  amelioration  which  he  desires,  in 
sexual  selection,  which  will  be  the  prerogative 
of  ■  woman ;  and  therefore  woman's  position  in 
the  not  distant  future  "  will  be  far  higher  and 
more  important  than  any  which  has  been  claimed 
for  or  by  her  in  the  past."  When  political  and 
social  rights  are  conceded  to  her  on  equality 
with  men,  her  free  choice  in  marriage,  no  longer 
influenced  by  economic  and  social  considera- 
tions, will  guide  the  future  moral  progress  of 
the  race,  restore  the  lost  equality  of  opportunity 
to  every  child  born  in  our  country,  and  secure 
the  balance  between  the  sexes.  "  It  will  be  their 
(women's)  special  duty  so  to  mould  public  opinion, 
through  home  training  and  social  influence,  as  to 
render  the  women  of  the  future  the  regenerators 
of  the  entire  human  race." 

But  before  this  can  effectively  operate  much 
has  to  be  faced,  and  Dr.  Wallace  summarises 
the  matter  into  one  general  conclusion,  namely, 
that  a  civilised  government  must,  as  its  prime 
duty,  "  organise  the  labour  of  the  whole  com- 
munity for  the  equal  good  of  all,"  but  it  is  also 
bound  immediately   to  take   steps   to   "  abolish 

xli 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

death  by  starvation  and  by  preventable  disease  due 
to  insanitary  dwellings  and  dangerous  employ- 
ments, while  carefully  elaborating  the  permanent 
remedy  for  want  in  the  midst  of  wealth."  The 
laws  of  evolution  are  all  in  favour  of  such  a 
revolution,  but  the  present  system  of  competi- 
tion must  become  one  of  brotherly  co-operation 
and  co-ordination  for  the  equal  good  of  all. 
Apart  from  this  there  is  no  hope  for  advance 
towards  true,  living  freedom,  and  this  present 
volume  on  "  The  Revolt  of  Democracy  "  empha- 
sises and  illustrates  this  tremendous  indictment. 

And  now  we  must  bring  to  a  close  this  very 
imperfect  sketch,  in  the  writing  of  which  we 
have  received  great  assistance,  which  we  grate- 
fully acknowledge,  from  Dr.  Wallace  himself,  his 
son,  Mr.  W.  G.  Wallace,  and  a  generous  friend 
who  desires  to  remain  unknown. 

In  1889  Dr.  Wallace  removed  to  Parkstone, 
Dorset,  where  he  resided  till  1902,  when  he  again 
built  himself  a  house — this  time  at  Broadstone, 
overlooking  Poole  Harbour  and  the  Purbeck 
Hills.  Here  he  still  lives  and  finds  real  interest 
and  delight  in  his  greenhouse  and  garden,  which 
have  always  been  such  a  pleasurable  source  of 
recreation  in  his  times  of  leisure. 

He  has  always  been  an  omnivorous  reader, 
and  his  mind  is  stored  with  facts  in  relation  to 
a  very  wide  range  of  knowledge,  while  he  is 
seldom  without  a  novel  by  his  side  for  his 
hours   of  relaxation. 


^£ft*^li 


aa 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

Dr.  Wallace's  optimism  is  one  of  his  most 
striking  traits,  and  he  looks  back  upon  what- 
ever misfortunes  and  hardships  have  fallen  to 
his  lot  as  blessings  in  disguise,  which  have 
strengthened  his  character  and  stimulated  him 
to  fresh  endeavour. 

At  the  memorable  meeting  of  the  British 
Association  at  Cambridge,  in  1894,  Lord  Salis- 
bury, recalling  the  historic  reception  of  the 
Darwinian  hypothesis  in  the  same  place  half  a 
century  previously,  and  in  paying  a  just  tribute 
to  Charles  Darwin,  said  that  "  The  equity  of  his 
judgment,  the  single-minded  love  of  truth,  and 
patient  devotion  to  the  pursuit  of  it  through 
years  of  toil  and  of  other  conditions  the  most 
unpropitious — these  things  endeared  to  numbers  of 
men  everything  that  came  from  Charles  Darwin, 
apart  from  his  scientific  merit  and  literary 
charm  ;  and  whatever  final  value  may  be  assigned 
to  his  doctrine,  nothing  can  ever  detract  from  the 
lustre  shed  upon  it  by  the  wealth  of  his  know- 
ledge and  the  infinite  ingenuity  of  his  resource." 

This  tribute  might  be,  with  equal  justice, 
applied  to  Wallace.  In  his  charming  modesty, 
his  unselfishness,  his  instinct  for  truth — ^which, 
said  Darwin  to  Henslow,  "  was  something  of  the 
same  nature  as  the  instinct  for  virtue  " — in  his 
constant  and  singularly  patient  consideration  of 
every  opinion  which  differed  from  his  own,  and  in 
his  inventive  imagination,  Wallace  is  the  worthy 
companion  of  Darwin. 

xliii 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

But,  as  we  have  seen,  he  has  other  claims  to 
be  remembered  by  posterity.  He  is  also  a  fearless 
social  reformer  who  vigorously  lays  the  axe  to 
the  root  of  great  evils  which  flourish  in  our 
midst,  some  of  which  present-day  society 
cherishes.  He  has  struck  what  he  believes  to  be 
a  hard  blow  at  vaccination — still  an  almost 
heaven-sent  weapon  against  smallpox  in  the 
armoury  of  many  doctors  ;  and  he  has  dared 
boldly  to  accept  a  spiritualistic  interpretation 
of  Nature,  which  is  still  treated  as  charlatanism. 

He  has  not  been  the  recluse  calmly  spin- 
ning theories  from  a  bewildering  chaos  of 
observations,  and  building  up  isolated  facts 
into  the  unity  of  a  great  and  illuminating 
conception  in  the  silence  and  solitude  of 
his  library,  unmindful  of  the  great  world  of 
sin  and  sorrow  without.  He  could  say  with 
Darwin,  "  I  was  born  a  naturalist,"  but  we  can 
also  add,  his  heart  is  on  fire  with  love  for  the 
toiling  masses.  He  has  felt  the  intense  joy  of 
discovering  a  vast  and  splendid  generalisation, 
which  not  only  worked  a  complete  revolution  in 
biological  science,  but  has  also  illuminated  the 
vast  field  of  human  knowledge.  Yet  his  greatest 
ambition  has  been  to  improve  the  cruel  con- 
ditions under  which  thousands  of  his  fellow- 
creatures  suffer  and  die,  and  to  make  their  lives 
sweeter  and  happier.  His  mind  is  great  enough 
to  encompass  all  that  lies  between  the  visible 
horizons   of  human  thought   and   activity,   and 

xliv 


The  Life  Story  of  the  Author 

now  in  his  old  age  he  lives  upon  the  topmost 
peaks,  eagerly  looking  for  the  horizon  beyond. 
In  the  words  of  the  late  Mr.  Gladstone's  own 
precept,  "  He  has  been  inspired  with  the  belief 
that  life  is  a  great  and  noble  calling,  not  a  mean 
and  grovelling  thing  that  we  are  to  shuffle  through 
as  we  can,  but  an  elevated  and  lofty  destiny." 

James  Marchant. 


Xlv 


THE    REVOLT    OF 
DEMOCRACY 

CHAPTER    I 

INTRODUCTORY 

As  President  of  the  Land  Nationalisation 
Society  for  thirty  years,  I  have  given 
much  attention  to  the  various  inquiries 
by  Royal  Commissions,  by  Parliamentary 
Committees,  or  by  private  philanthropists, 
into  Irish  evictions  and  Highland  clear- 
ances, sweating,  unemployment,  low  wages, 
unhealthy  trades,  bad  and  overcrowded 
dwellings,  and  the  depopulation  of  the 
rural  districts.  These  inquiries  have  suc- 
ceeded each  other  in  a  melancholy  proces- 
sion during  the  last  sixty  years ;  they  have 
made  known  the  almost  incredible  condi- 
tions of  life  of  great  numbers  of  our  workers  ; 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy     [ch. 

and  they  have  suggested  more  or  less  in- 
effective remedies,  but  their  proposals  have 
been  followed  by  even  less  effective  legisla- 
tion when  any  palliative  has  been  at- 
tempted. ^  ^ 

During  the  whole  of  the  nineteenth 
century  there  was  a  continuous  advance 
in  the  application  of  scientific  discovery 
to  the  arts,  and  especially  in  the  inven- 
tion and  application  of  labour-saving 
machinery  ;  and  our  wealth  has  increased 
to  an  equally  marvellous  extent.  Various 
estimates  which  have  been  made  of  the 
increase  in  our  wealth-producing  power 
show  that,  roughly  speaking,  the  use  of 
mechanical  power  has  increased  more  than 
a  hundredfold  during  the  century ;  yet 
the  result  has  been  to  create  a  limited 
upper  class,  living  in  unexampled  luxury, 
while  about  one-fourth  of  our  whole  popu- 
lation exists  in  a  state  of  fluctuating  penury, 
often  sinking  below  what  has  been  termed 


I]  Introductory 

'*  the  margin  of  poyerty."  Of  these,  many 
thousands  are  annually  drawn  into  the 
gulf  of  absolute  destitution,  dying  either 
from  direct  starvation,  or  from  diseases 
produced  by  their  employment,  and  ren- 
dered fatal  by  want  of  the  necessaries  and 
comforts  of  a  healthy  existence. 

But  during  this  long  period,  while  wealth 
and  want  were  alike  increasing  side  by  side, 
,  public  opinion  w^s  not  sufficiently  educated 
to  permit  of  any  effectual  remedy  being 
applied  for  the  extirpation  of  this  terrible 
social  disease.  The  workers  themselves  had 
not  visualised  its  fundamental  causes — land 
monopoly  and  the  competitive  system  of 
industry,  giving  rise  to  an  ever-increasing 
private  capitalism  which,  to  a  very  large 
extent,  controlled  the  legislature.  This 
rapid  growth  of  wealth  through  the  increase 
of  the  various  kinds  of  manufacturing 
industry  led  to  a  still  greater  increase  of 
aniddlemen    engaged  in  the  distribution  of 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy      [ch. 

its  products,  from  wealthy  merchants, 
through  various  grades  of  tradesmen  and 
petty  shopkeepers  who  supplied  the  daily 
wants  of  the  whole  community.  To  these 
must  be  added  the  innumerable  parasites 
of  the  ever-increasing  wealthy  classes  ;  the 
builders  of  their  mansions  and  their  fac- 
tories ;  the  makers  of  their  furniture  and 
clothing,  of  their  costly  ornaments  and 
their  children's  toys ;  the  vast  body  of 
their  immediate  dependents,  from  their 
managers,  their  agents,  commercial  travel- 
lers and  clerks,  through  various  grades  of 
domestic  servants,  grooms  and  game- 
keepers, butlers  and  housekeepers,  down 
to  stable-boys  and  kitchen-maids,  all  de- 
riving their  means  of  existence  from  the 
wealth  daily  produced  in  mines,  factories 
and  workshops.  This  was  apparently  due 
primarily,  if  not  exclusively,  to  the  capi- 
talists themselves  as  the  employers  of 
labour,  without  whose  agency  and  super- 


I]  Introductory 

vision  it  was  believed  that  all  productive 
labour  would  cease,  bringing  ruin  and  star- 
vation to  the  whole  population.  Thus,  a 
vast  mass  of  public  opinion  was  created, 
all  in  favour  of  the  capitalists  as  the  em- 
ployers of  labour  and  the  true  source  of 
the  creation  of  wealth. 

To  those  who  lived  in  the  midst  of  this 
vast  industrial  system,  or  were  a  part  of 
it,  it  seemed  natural  and  inevitable  that 
there  should  be  rich  and  poor  ;  and  this 
belief  was  enforced  on  the  one  hand  by 
the  clergy,  and  on  the  other  by  the  political 
economists,  so  that  religion  and  science 
agreed  in  upholding  the  competitive  and 
capitalistic  system  of  society  as  being  the 
only  rational  and  possible  one.  Hence, 
till  quite  recently,  it  was  believed  that 
the  abolition  of  poverty  was  entirely  out- 
side the  true  sphere  of  governmental 
action.  It  was,  in  fact,  openly  declared 
and    believed    that    poverty    was    due    to 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy 

economic  causes  over  which  governments 
had  no  power ;  that  wages  were  kept 
down  by  the  "  iron  law "  of  supply  and 
demand  ;  and  that  any  attempts  to  find 
a  remedy  by  Acts  of  Parliament  only 
aggravated  the  disease.  This  was  the 
doctrine  held,  even  by  such  great  men  as 
W.  E.  Gladstone  and  Sir  William  Harcourt, 
together  with  the  dogma  that  it  was  a 
government's  duty  to  buy  in  the  cheapest 
market,  in  order  to  protect  the  taxpayer. 
It  was  the  doctrine  also  which  converted 
the  misnamed  "  guardians "  of  the  poor 
into  guardians  of  the  ratepayers'  interests, 
and  led  to  that  rigid  and  unsympathetic 
treatment  of  the  very  poor  which  made 
the  workhouse  more  dreaded  than  the  jail, 
and  which  to  this  very  day  leads  many  of 
the  most  destitute  to  die  of  lingering  star- 
vation, or  to  commit  suicide,  rather  than 
apply  for  relief  or  enter  the  gloomy  portals 
of  the  workhouse. 


CHAPTER    II 

THE   DAWN   OF   A   NEW   ERA 

It  was,  I  believe,  Sir  Henry  Campbell- 
Bannerman,  when  he  became  Prime 
Minister  in  1905,  who  changed  this  atti- 
tude of  negation  of  all  his  predecessors. 
He  boldly  declared  in  numerous  speeches, 
both  in  and  out  of  Parliament,  that  he 
held  it  to  be  the  duty  of  a  government 
to  deal  with  the  great  problems  of  un- 
employment and  poverty,  and  especially 
to  attack  the  increasingly  injurious  land- 
monopoly,  and  so  to  legislate  as  to  make 
our  native  soil  ever  more  and  more  **  a 
treasure-house  for  the  poor  rather  than  a 
mere  pleasure-house  for  the  rich."  And 
as  an  earnest  of  his  determination  to  carry 
out    these    views,    he    brought    into    his 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy      [ch. 

Ministry  John  Burns  and  David  Lloyd 
George,  the  former  for  his  knowledge  of 
the  conditions  and  aspirations  of  skilled 
labour,  and  his  administrative  experience 
both  in  the  County  Council  and  in  Parlia- 
ment, and  the  latter  for  his  energy  as 
an  advanced  thinker,  his  powers  of  public 
speaking,  and  his  enthusiasm  for  social 
reform. 

When  Mr.  Asquith  became  Prime 
Minister  in  1908,  he  made  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  his  successor  as  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  and  never  was  the  wisdom  of 
an  appointment  more  fully  justified.  The 
new  Chancellor,  in  the  memorable  Budget 
thrown  out  by  the  House  of  Lords,  made 
provision  not  only  for  our  ever-increasing 
Navy,  but  also  for  Old-Age  Pensions  and 
for  far-reaching  measures  calculated  to 
benefit  the  working  classes. 

It  is,  in  my  opinion,  largely  due  to  this 
attitude  of  Liberal  Governments,  without 


"]  Dawn  of  a  New  Era 

adequate  remedial  legislation,  during  the 
last  seven  years,  with  a  corresponding 
change  in  public  opinion,  that  has  led  to 
the  recent  effort  of  the  workers  to  bring 
about  better  conditions  by  means  of  com- 
bined strikes.  The  three  great  strikes  in 
rapid  succession,  of  the  Railway  and 
other  transport  Unions,  of  the  Miners,  and 
of  the  London  Dock  Labourers,  must  have 
brought  home  to  the  middle  and  upper 
classes  and  to  the  Government  how  com- 
pletely they  are  all  dependent  on  the  often 
despised  working  classes,  not  only  for 
every  comfort  and  luxury  which  they 
enjoy,  for  the  means  of  rapid  locomotion 
and  of  carrying  on  their  respective  busi- 
nesses and  pleasures,  but  also  for  obtain- 
ing the  daily  food  essential  for  life  itself. 
The  experience  now  gained  shows  us  that 
when  the  organisation  of  the  trade  unions 
is  rendered  more  complete,  and  the  accu- 
mulated funds  of  a  dozen  or  twenty  years 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy 

are  devoted  to  this  one  purpose,  the  bulk  of 
the  inhabitants  of  London,  or  of  any  other 
of  our  great  cities,  could  be  made  to  suffer 
a  degree  of  famine  comparable  with  that  of 
Paris  when  besieged  by  the  German  army 
in  1870. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  such  a  disaster 
will  not  happen,  but  it  can  only  be  pre- 
vented by  much  more  effective  action 
than  has  yet  been  taken  to  improve  the 
social  status  of  the  great  body  of  indus- 
trial and  other  workers,  and  to  abolish 
completely  the  conditions  which  compel 
a  large  proportion  of  those  workers  to 
exist  on  or  below  the  margin  of  poverty, 
often  culminating  in  actual  death  from, 
want  of  the  bare  necessaries  of  existence. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  LESSON  OF  THE  STRIKES 

The  serious  position  which  these  succes- 
sive strikes  have  brought  about  has  led 
to  much  discussion  in  the  newspapers  and 
other  periodicals,  in  which  a  number  of  well- 
known  literary  men  have  taken  part,  and, 
what  is  much  more  important,  in  which 
several  of  the  most  able  and  intelligent  of 
the  workers  themselves  have  clearly  stated 
their  determination  to  obtain  certain  funda- 
mental reforms.  Month  by  month  it  has 
become  more  clear  and  certain  that  what 
has  been  termed  "  The  Labour  Unrest " 
will  certainly  continue  with  ever-increasing 
determination  and  effective  power  till  some 
such  reforms  as  they  demand  are  conceded 
by  the  Government. 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy     [ch 

A  careful  study  of  the  more  important 
of  these  various  pronouncements  shows  us 
that  two  things  stand  out  clearly,  as  to 
which  there  is  almost  universal  agreement. 
These  are,  first,  that  the  condition  of  the 
workers  as  a  whole  is  absolutely  unbear- 
able, is  a  disgrace  to  civilisation,  and  fully 
justifies  the  most  extreme  demands  of  the 
workers  ;  and,  secondly,  that  among  the 
whole  of  the  writers — whether  statesmen 
or  thinkers,  capitalists  or  workmen — there 
is  not  one  who  has  proposed  any  definite 
and  workable  plan  by  which  the  desired 
change  of  conditions  will  be  brought  about. 
Yet  one  such  plan  was  carefully  worked 
out  more  than  twenty  years  ago,  and 
though  the  book  had  a  considerable  sale 
and  a  cheap  edition  of  it  was  issued,  not 
the  slightest  effect  was  produced  on  public 
opinion  or  on  the  Government.*  The  time 
had  not  yet  come  for  such  radical  reforms 

♦  See  Rev.  H.  V.  Mills'  Poverty  and  the  State. 


"I]       The  Lesson  of  the  Strikes 

to  be  seriously  considered.  But  conditions 
have  changed,  and  some  definite  action 
is  now  imperatively  demanded  if  this 
"  unrest "  is  to  cease,  and  if  the  reason- 
able claims  of  the  workers  are  to  be 
satisfied.  Let  us  see,  then,  what  these 
claims  are,  and  why  none  of  the  various 
palhatives  hinted  at  by  a  few  of  those 
who  have  taken  part  in  the  discussion 
can  do  any  real  good,  while  they  will 
certainly  not  satisfy  the  workers  or  allay 
their  quite  justifiable  "  unrest." 


CHAPTER    IV 

WHAT   THE    WORKERS    CLAIM    AND    MUST 
HAVE 

The  workers'  claim  is  put  forward  by  Mr. 
Vernon  Hartshorn  in  the  following  clear 
and  terse  statement  : 

"  What  is  that  demand  ?  It  is,  that  the  com- 
munity shall  guarantee  to  the  men  and  women  who 
perform  services  essential  to  the  existence  or  happi- 
ness of  the  community,  a  reasonably  comfortable 
and  civilised  livelihood — a  decent  minimum  of  food 
and  clothing,  leisure  and  recreation,  and  houses  fit 
for  human  beings." 

Then  he  proceeds  to  ask  : 

"  How  do  the  workers  propose  that  the  com- 
munity shall  give  them  that  guarantee  ?  By  the 
estabhshment  of  a  legally  guaranteed  eight-hours 
day.     By  the  establishment  of  a  national  housing 

standard  at  a  rent  within  the  reach  of  the  workers. 

14 


The  Workers'  Claim 

And  also  by  the  power  of  the  trade  unions  to  check 
the  exploitation  of  Labour  by  competitive  methods 
which  tend  to  force  down  the  average  standard  of 
living  among  the  working  classes." 

Then,  after  a  reference  to  the  recent 
claim  of  the  doctors  to  what  they  consider 
a  living  wage  under  the  National  Insur- 
ance Act,  and  also  to  the  many  luxuries 
of  the  rich  which  the  workers  do  not  want, 
he  again  states  the  workers'  claim  thus  : 

"  It  is  not  an  extravagant  demand.  It  is  just  the 
plain  blunt  demand  that  might  be  expected  from 
British  working-men.  .  .  .  It  is  a  demand  by  those 
who,  either  by  hand  or  brain,  make  the  wealth  of 
the  nation,  that  the  first  charge  upon  that  wealth 
shall  be  the  maintenance  of  themselves  in  reasonable 
comfort." 

Then  he  concludes  with  this  important 
declaration  of  policy  : — 

"  Democracy  must  be  its  own  emancipator.    But 

institutions  hke  the  Church,   Parliament,   and   the 

Press,  and  even  the  rich,  have  to  make  up  their  minds 

15 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy     [ch. 

as  to  what  shall  be  their  attitude  toward  it.  They 
must  decide  for  themselves  whether  the  demand  of 
the  workers  for  a  fairer  share  of  the  good  things  of 
life  is  just  or  unjust.  The  working  classes  have 
already  made  up  their  minds.  They  are  convinced 
that  their  demand  is  just,  and  with  a  highly  intelli- 
gent, vigorous  working  class,  stung  by  a  sense  of 
injustice,  the  future  of  this  country  will  be  full  of 
danger.  The  stupid  attitude  of  hostility  or  superior 
patronage  which  has  been  adopted  towards  the  work- 
ing classes  in  the  past  by  powerful  elements  in 
society  has  helped  to  generate  the  present  revolu- 
tionary upheaval.  .  .  .  The  worker  does  not  want 
charity  to  redress  the  balance.  He  knows  that 
charity  robs  him  of  his  manhood.  He  feels  that  he 
is  entitled  to  a  man's  share  of  the  wealth  he  has 
produced,  and  he  wants  it  assured  to  him,  not  as  a 
charity,  but  as  a  citizen's  right." 

Then,  after  describing  how  neither 
Parhament  nor  the  present  Government  can 
or  will  secure  this  for  him,  and  that  their 
methods  of  "  conciliation"  or  "arbitration" 
are  useless  or  inadequate,  he  concludes  : 

i6 


IV]  The  Workers'  Claim 

"There  is  only  one  way  to  industrial  peace. 
There  is  only  one  way  to  stave  off  a  class  war  which 
may  shake  civilisation  to  its  foundations.  It  is  by  a 
full  and  frank  acknowledgement  by  society  that  the 
claim  of  the  worker  to  a  sufficiency  of  food  and  clothing 
and  a  fuller  life  is  just,  and  that  it  must  be  made  the 
first  charge  upon  the  wealth  produced.  ...  It  is 
the  present  order  of  society  which  is  upon  its  trial. 
Can  it  do  justice  to  the  worker  ?  If  it  can,  and  if 
it  does,  then  it  will  have  justified  its  existence.  But 
if  it  cannot,  then  its  ultimate  doom  is  sealed." 

Quotations  from  other  Labour  leaders 
could  be  made  to  the  same  effect,  show- 
ing that  the  workers  now  know  their 
rights  and  are  determined  to  obtain  them. 
But  they  do  not  see  exactly  how  that  is 
to  be  done,  and  it  is  for  their  friends  and 
well-wishers  to  assist  them  in  finding  out 
a  way. 

A  few  useful  indications  of  how  we 
must  approach  the  problem  may  be 
quoted. 

Mr.    Seebohm    Rowntree,    one    of    the 

E  17 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy      [ch. 

best  and  most  sympathetic  employers  of 
labour  in  the  country,  tells  us  that — 

"  The  capitalists  should  entirely  shake  off  the 
idea  that  wage-earners  are  inferior  beings  to  them- 
selves, and  should  learn  to  regard  them  as  valued 
and  necessary  partners  in  the  great  work  of  wealth- 
production — partners  with  whose  accredited  repre- 
sentatives they  may  honourably  discuss  the  propor- 
tions in  which  the  wealth  jointly  produced  should 
be  divided." 

He  also  sees  clearly,  and  declares  that — 

"  The  poverty  at  one  end  of  the  social  scale  will 
not  be  removed  except  by  encroaching  heavily  upon 
the  great  riches  at  the  other  end." 

But  this,  apparently,  is  the  last  thing 
capitalist  employers  want  or  will  submit 
to. 

Mr.  Frederic  Harrison  urges  that  labour 
cannot  be  in  a  settled  and  healthy  state 

"  till  seven  hours  is  made  the  normal  standard  of  a 
day's  labour," 

i8 


IV]  The  Workers'  Claim 

and  that — 

"  a  fixed  living  wage  is  merely  the  irreducible  part  of 
the  remuneration,  the  rest  being  proportioned  to  the 
profits  on  the  work  done." 

And  he  concludes  his  most  interesting 
and  suggestive  article  with  the  dictum 
that— 

"The  unrest   is  come  to  stay,  and  will  not  be 
ended  by  petty  devices." 

Mr.  Sidney  Low  tells  us  that  there  are 
many  young  men  among  the  workers  who 
read  Carlyle  and  Ruskin,  and  believe  that 
if  our  society  were  rightly  organised  the 
life  of  cultivated  leisure  would  not  be  the 
privilege  of  the  Few,  but  the  possession 
of  the  Many.  Mr.  Geoffrey  Drage  con- 
firms this  statement,   and  declares  that — 

"  the  worker  sees  that  the  time  for  cries  is  past,  the 
time  for  action  is  come." 

But  he,  too,  like  all  the  others,  gives 
19 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy  [ch. 
no  clue  as  to  how  the  great  change  is  to 
be  brought  about,  not  sporadically  here 
and  there,  but  universally — not  by  slightly 
improving  the  condition  of  skilled  labour 
only,  but  by  such  means  as  will  imme- 
diately begin  to  act  upon  the  lowest 
stratum  of  the  social  fabric,  and  in  a 
measurable  space  of  time  abolish  want, 
culminating  in  actual  starvation,  in  this 
land  of  ever-increasing  wealth,  and  ever 
more  and  more  extravagant  luxury. 

Before  laying  before  my  readers  what 
I  conceive  to  be,  at  the  present  juncture, 
the  best  and,  indeed,  the  only  mode  of 
successfully  attacking  this  great  and  press- 
ing problem,  I  will  give  the  statement  of 
Mr.  Anderson,  the  Chairman  of  the  Con- 
ference of  the  Independent  Labour  Party, 
in  the  autumn  of  191 2.  In  reply  to  a 
Press  representative,  he  said  : 

"  The  whole  upheaval  is  a  revolt  against  poverty  ; 
against,   that  is,   Social  Injustice  ;    and  it  involves 


V]  The  Workers'  Claim 

the  Right  to  Live  .  .  .  Strikes  are  disintegrating  . 
they  are  no  real  and  permanent  remedy.  We  have 
to  find  the  solution  in  some  new  basis  for  industrial 
reform,  and  my  view  is,  that  if  reform  is  to  do  any 
good  it  must  contain  in  itself  the  germ  of  a  better 
social  organisation.     Palliatives  are  no  cure." 

And  then,  when  he  was  urged  to  say, 
"  What  do  you  actually  propose  ?  "  his 
reply  was  : 

"  We  are  determined  that  destitution  must  he 
stamped  out ;  and  our  remedy  resolves  itself  into 
this  :  A  national  minimum  of  Wages,  Housing,  Leisure, 
and  Education.  That  is  Labour's  battle-cry  for  the 
future." 


CHAPTER   V 
A  government's  duty 

Now,  in  all  the  foregoing  views  of  the 
leaders  and  the  friends  of  Labour,  there 
is  a  very  close  agreement  as  to  the  pre- 
sent position  of  the  whole  body  of  workers, 
and  as  to  the  nature  and  amount  of 
the  reforms  they  insist  upon,  without 
which  they  will  not  be  satisfied,  and  will 
not  cease  from  agitation,  culminating  in 
more  extensive  and  more  determined  and 
better-organised  strikes.  This  will  be  the 
only  method  left  open  to  them  if  their 
admittedly  moderate  and  just  claims  are 
not  fully  and  honestly  recognised  by  the 
party  in  power,  and  at  once  translated 
into  adequate  direct  action. 

It  is  a  very  strange  thing  to  me,  and 


A  Government's  Duty 

must  be  so  to  many  others,  that  in  this 
most  wealthy  country  a  powerful  Govern- 
ment, long  pledged  to  social  reform,  cannot 
or  will  not  take  any  immediate  and 
direct  steps  to  abolish  the  pitiable  extremes 
of  destitution  which  are  ever  present  in  all 
its  great  cities,  its  towns,  and  even  its 
villages !  The  old,  complex  and  harsh 
machinery  of  its  Poor  Laws  has  become 
less  and  less  efhcient.  Enormous  sums 
spent  in  various  forms  of  charity  do  not 
prevent  starvation,  do  not  appear  to 
diminish  it.  The  cause  of  this  almost 
universal  apathy  is  the  very  persistence  of 
destitution  and  its  obscurity.  The  various 
forms  of  charity  aie  more  conspicuous  and 
more  obtrusive,  so  that  most  people  are 
quite  unable  to  realise  that  starvation  is 
still  rampant  to  a  most  terrible  and  most 
disgraceful  extent  all  over  our  land. 

In  1898  I  published  in   my  volume  on 

The    Wonderful   Century    an    appendix    on 

23 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy     [ch 

"The  Remedy  for  Want  in  the  Midst  of 
Wealth,"  but,  thinking  that  the  general 
scheme  I  proposed  was  too  advanced  for 
immediate  adoption,  I  also  gave  a  plan, 
headed  "  How  to  Stop  Starvation,"  which 
began  with  these  words  : 

"  But  till  some  such  method  is  demanded  by 
public  opinion,  and  its  adoption  forced  upon  our 
legislators,  the  horrible  scandal  and  crime  of  men, 
women,  and  little  children,  by  thousands  and  millions, 
living  in  the  most  wretched  want,  dying  of  actual 
starvation,  or  driven  to  suicide  by  the  dread  of  it, 
must  be  stopped  !  " 

The  Chairman  of  the  Independent 
Labour  Party  now  also  declares  that 
*'  Destitution  must  be  stamped  out." 

Since  the  above   passage    was  written 

nothing     effective     has    been     done,     the 

horrors  of  our  slums  are  as  bad  as  ever, 

our  cumbrous  and  unsympathetic  systems 

of     poor     relief    are    utter    failures.       I, 

therefore,    again    submit    my    simple    and 

24 


V]  A  Government's  Duty 

practical  suggestion,  which  is  as  much 
needed  to-day  as  it  was  then.  It  is  as 
follows  : 

"  The  only  certain  way  to  abolish  starvation,  not 

when  it  is  too  late,  but  in  its  very  earhest  stages, 

is  free  bread.     I  imagine  the  outcry  against  this  • 

'  Fraud  !  Loafing  !  Pauperisation  !  '  etc.,  etc.  Perhaps 

so  ;    perhaps  not.     But  even  if  it  must  be  so,  better 

give  bread  to  a  hundred  loafers  than  refuse  it  to  a 

hundred  who  are  starving.    All  who  want  it,  all  who 

have  not  money  enough  to  buy  wholesome  food  and 

other  necessaries,  must  be  able  to  g^t  this  bread  with 

the  minimum  of  trouble.    There  must  be  no  tests  like 

those  for  Poor  Law  relief.   A  decent  home,  with  good 

furniture  and  good  clothes,  must  be  no  bar ;    neither 

must  the  possession  of  money  if  that  money  is  needed 

for  rent,  for  coals,  or  for  other  absolute  necessaries 

of  life.    The  bread  must  be  given  to  prevent  injurious 

destitution,  not  merely  to  alleviate  it.    The  bread  is 

not  to  be  charity,  not  poor  relief,  but  a  rightful  claim 

upon  society  for  its  neglect  to  organise  itself  so  that 

all,  without  exception,  who  have  worked,  and  are 

willing  to  work,  or  are  unable  to  work,  may  at  the 

very  least  have  food  to  support  life. 

25 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy     [ch 

"  Now  for  the  mode  of  obtaining  this  bread.  All 
local  authorities  shall  be  required  to  prepare  bread- 
tickets  duly  stamped  and  numbered  with  coupons 
to  be  detached,  each  representing  a  2-lb.  or  4-lb. 
loaf.  These  tickets  to  be  issued  in  suitable  quanti- 
ties to  every  poUceman,  to  all  the  clergy  of  every 
denomination,  and  to  all  medical  men.  Any  person 
in  want  of  food,  by  applying  to  any  of  these  distri- 
butors is  to  be  given  a  coupon  for  one  loaf,  without 
any  question  whatever. 

"  If  the  person  wants  more  than  one  loaf,  or 
wishes  to  have  one  or  more  such  loaves  for  a  week, 
a  name  and  address  must  be  given.  The  distributor, 
or  some  deputy,  will  then  pay  a  visit  during  the 
day,  ascertain  the  bare  facts,  give  a  suitable  number 
of  tickets,  and,  as  in  cases  of  sickness  or  of  young 
children,  obtain  such  other  relief  as  may  be  needed," 

The  cost  of  dealing  with  this  wide- 
spread destitution  should  be  borne  by 
the  National  Exchequer,  both  because  it 
is  due  to  deep-seated  causes  in  our  social 
economy,  and  also  because  its  distribution 

is  very   unequal,   so    that    the  cost  would 

26 


v]  A  Government's  Duty 

be  heaviest  in  the  poorer  and  lightest  in 
the  richer  areas.  It  must,  however,  be 
treated  as  essentially  of  a  temporary  nature, 
only  needed  till  the  fundamental  causes  of 
poverty  are  properly  dealt  with  by  some 
such  method  as  that  to  be  explained  later 
on,  when  any  such  expedient  will  become 
a  thing  of  the  past. 

When  we  consider  that  during  the  last 
fourteen  years  our  national  expenditure 
has  increased  by  about  £80,000,000,  and 
that  it  has  now  reached  the  vast  amount 
of  £185,000,000,  it  is  almost  incredible 
that  we  should  have  made  no  serious 
attempt  to  discover  the  causes  and  apply 
the  remedy  to  this  terrible  social  canker 
in  our  civilisation.  Now,  however,  that 
the  Labour  Party  insists  upon  an  imme- 
diate remedy  being  applied,  and  also  claims 
for  the  sufferers  and  for  the  whole  body 
of   workers   full    social    equality   with   all 

other  citizens — a  claim  recognised  by  many 

27 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy      [ch. 

of  our  best  and  greatest  writers  to  be  a 
just  one — perennial  starvation  of  our  very 
poor  must  no  longer  be  ignored,  and  our 
Government  must  grapple  with  it  without 
further  delay. 

Government  and  its  Employees 

We  will  now  proceed  to  consider  how 
the  Government  can  itself  lead  the  way 
towards  that  new  organisation  of  society 
which  will  afford  a  permanent  remedy  for 
labour  unrest,  and  satisfy  the  just  demands 
of  some  considerable  portion  of  the  workers 
of  our  country. 

The  Prime  Minister  has  quite  recently 
declared  his  invincible  objection  to  fixing 
even  a  minimum  wage  by  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment, but  no  positive  objection  has  been 
made  to  raising  the  wages  of  all  Govern- 
ment employees  above  such  a  minimum. 
This  has  been  asked  for  again  and  again 
by  the  workers  themselves,  as  well  as  by 

their    representatives   in    Parliament,    but 

28 


V]  A  Government's  Duty 

has  only  been  acted  upon  partially,  and 
any  proposal  for  giving  higher  wages  than 
are  paid  by  private  capitalists  has  been 
objected  to  for  various  reasons.  It  is  said 
to  be  unfair  to  thus  compete  with  private 
enterprise ;  that  more  men  at  present 
wages  can  always  be  had  than  are  re- 
quired ;  and  other  reasons  of  the  usual 
type  of  the  old  school  of  economists. 
These  objections  are  also  upheld  for  poli- 
tical reasons,  since  the  large  number  of 
capitalists  and  wealthy  employers  of  labour 
in  the  House  of  Commons  would  violently 
oppose  any  such  unprecedented  expendi- 
ture, and  endanger  the  very  existence  of 
the  Government. 

But  all  these  objections  may  now, 
perhaps,  be  much  weakened,  or  even  dis- 
regarded, in  view  of  the  recent  strikes  and 
the  future  possibilities  they  suggest.  The 
workers  are  now  steadily  becoming  better 
organised  and  more  conscious  of  their  own 


2y 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy     [ch 

power  at  the  polls,  and  they  will  no  longer 
support  a  Government  which  confesses 
itself  impotent  to  lift  them  out  of  the 
terrible  quagmire  of  misery  and  degra- 
dation into  which  the  present  economic 
system  is  steadily  forcing  them.  The  time 
for  conferences  and  discussions  and  for 
petty  alleviations  which  are  wholly  use- 
less is  gone  by.  What  the  workers  now 
demand  is  that  the  Government  shall  begin 
to  act  so  far  as  it  possesses  the  power  to 
act ;  that  it  must  raise  the  wages,  provide 
decent  houses,  establish  shorter  hours  of 
work,  give  suitable  holidays,  and  establish 
liberal  retiring  pensions,  for  every  one  of 
its  own  employees. 

It  is  true  that  something  has  been 
done  in  this  direction,  but  many  Govern- 
ment workers  are  still  said  to  be  as  badly 
off  as  under  the  lower  class  of  private 
capitalists.  Whether  or  not  this  is  due 
to  the  old  idea  that  the  taxpayers  must 


V]  A  Government's  Duty 

be  protected  though  the  children  of  the 
workers  suffer  want,  I  do  not  know  ;  but 
unless  this  economy  in  the  wrong  place  is 
changed,  and  the  very  reverse  principle 
acted  upon,  the  present  Government  will 
bring  upon  itself  the  united  opposition  of 
the  workers. 

What  then  must  our  rulers  do  in  the 
present  crisis  ?  To  use  the  forcible  expres- 
sion of  the  late  W.  T.  Stead,  what  we 
insist  upon  now  is,  that  we  declare  war 
against  every  form  of  want,  poverty,  and 
industrial  discontent,  and  that  the  Govern- 
ment must  lead  the  way  and  set  the  pace. 
It  must  do  this  because  it  is  the  greatest 
employer  of  labour  in  the  kingdom :  its 
Civil  Service  alone — the  receivers  of  annual 
salaries  instead  of  weekly  wages — compris- 
ing 136,000  persons ;  and  because  it  has  the 
power  of  influencing  all  other  employers 
of  labour  through  the  force  of  its  example, 

as  well  as  by  the  action  of  economic  laws. 

31 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy     [ch. 

In  order  to  give  confidence  to  the 
Labour  Party,  a  proclamation  should  be 
at  once  issued  establishing  for  the  entire 
Government  Service  a  liberal  scale  of 
wages,  based  upon  the  inquiries  of  Mr.  C. 
Booth,  Mr.  S.  Rowntree  and  others,  so 
that  adult  workers  shall  receive  at  next 
pay-day  an  ample  "  living  wage,"  to  be 
increased  each  year  by  (say)  2s.  a  week 
till  it  reaches  the  estimate  of  these  dis- 
interested and  capable  inquirers.  Let  it 
be  declared  also  that,  except  for  gross  bad 
conduct,  no  man  shall  be  dismissed  the 
public  service  till  he  reaches  the  age  when 
he  will  receive  a  liberal  retiring  pension. 

As  the  avowed  object  must  be  to  make 

Government  employment  at  once  an  honour 

and  an  advantage,   and  also  that  it  may 

serve  as  a  model  for  all  other  employers 

of    labour,    everything    must    be    done    to 

promote   the   health   and   contentment   of 

the   whole   body   of   public   workers.      In 

32 


V]  A  Government's  Duty 

order  to  give  effect  to  this  declared  pur- 
pose, a  considerable  proportion  of  them 
should  be  gradually  trained  in  some  alter- 
native employment,  especially  in  those  that 
give  healthy  outdoor  occupation,  such  as 
the  various  building  trades,  and,  pre- 
eminently, in  some  kind  of  agricultural 
work.  It  will  thus  be  rendered  possible, 
whenever  we  cease  to  expend  so  many 
millions  annually  on  purely  destructive 
ships  and  weapons,  that  the  surplus  men 
engaged  in  our  dockyards  and  various 
factories  of  war-material  need  not  be  dis- 
charged and  create  a  new  army  of  the 
unemployed,  but  be  gradually  drafted  into 
an  army  of  true  wealth-producers. 

Another  important  feature  of  this  new 
departure  in  the  organisation  of  the  ex- 
tended Civil  Service  would  be  the  gradual 
removal  of  all  factories  and  workshops 
from  towns  and  cities  into  the  open  and 
healthy  country,  where  large  areas  of  land 


33 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy 

can  be  obtained  sufficient  to  produce  most 
of  the  food  and  clothing  for  its  inhabitants. 
Large  estates  of  several  thousand  acres  are 
constantly  in  the  market,  and  are  often 
sold  at  from  £io  to  £20  an  acre.  An 
additional  means  of  obtaining  such  estates 
would  be  a  short  Act  giving  the  Govern- 
ment power  to  take  death-duties  and  land- 
taxes  in  land  at  the  taxation  value  when- 
ever it  is  suitable  for  the  purpose.  Of 
course,  acting  on  the  general  principle  of 
making  its  own  employees  and  labourers 
the  best  and  most  contented  of  all  the 
working  classes,  the  Government  must  at 
once  make  arrangements  for  giving  up  its 
contract  work,  especially  in  the  clothing 
and  provision  departments,  replacing  it 
by  farms  and  factories  of  its  own. 


CHAPTER   VI 

POPULAR  OBJECTIONS,  AND  REPLIES  TO  THEM 

The  scheme  of  improved  Government  em- 
ployment now  briefly  explained  will,  of 
course,  give  rise  to  a  host  of  objections 
of  various  degrees  of  futility,  but  I  know 
of  none  of  the  least  real  weight.  The  first 
of  these  objections  will,  of  course,  be  the 
great  expense ;  and  that  it  will  neces- 
sitate more  taxes,  which  will  ruin  those 
who  only  just  manage  to  live  now.  To 
this  I  reply,  that  the  cost  to  the  poor 
need  really  be  almost  nothing ;  first,  be- 
cause every  pound  paid  extra  in  wages  is 
a  pound  more  expended  in  food,  clothing, 
furniture,  houses,  and  other  necessaries  of 
life.  It  will,  therefore,  benefit  the  makers, 
growers  and  retailers  of  those  commodities 

35 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy     [ch. 

by  the  increase  of  their  trade,  and  it  is  a 
maxim  of  pohtical  economy  that  the  home 
trade  is  the  best  trade  for  the  prosperity 
of  a  country.  In  the  second  place,  even 
with  our  present  system  of  taxation  the 
workers  will  largely  benefit,  because,  though 
they  will  secure  almost  all  the  immediate 
good  results  of  the  expenditure,  they  will 
pay  less  than  half  the  increased  taxa- 
tion. 

But,  fortunately,  we  have  a  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer  who  will  know  how  to 
raise  the  money  required  for  the  salvation 
of  the  destitute  from  the  excessive  and 
harmful  accumulations  of  the  very  rich. 
The  lower  and  middle  classes,  therefore, 
will  ultimately  pay  either  nothing  at  all 
or  a  very  small  fraction  of  the  amount 
required  for  the  increased  wages,  while 
they  are  the  classes  which  will  most  largely 
benefit  by  the  general  prosperity  caused 

by   its   expenditure.      It    must    surely   be 

36 


VI]  Replies  to  Objections 

better  for  the  country  to  preserve  the  very 
poor  in  health  and  strength,  and  to  give 
them  the  training  which  will  enable  them 
to  do  productive  work  as  soon  as  we  pro- 
vide it  for  them,  than  to  allow  them  to 
die  of  want,  and  its  resulting  diseases,  as 
we  do  now.  It  is  simply  irrational  to  say, 
as  many  do,  that  these  people  are  con- 
stitutionally unable  to  support  themselves. 
They  belong  to  the  very  same  class  as 
those  who,  both  here  and  in  the  Colonies, 
and  throughout  the  whole  civilised  world, 
not  only  do  support  themselves,  but,  in 
addition,  support  everybody  else,  and  at 
the  same  time  produce  all  the  luxuries 
and  costly  amusements  of  the  wealthy.  It  is 
clear,  therefore,  that  it  is  not  the  fault 
of  the  poor  that  so  many  of  them  are 
compulsorily  idle  or  starving,  but  of  the 
Government  which  proclaims  itself  unable 
to  give  them  productive  work.  There  can- 
not possibly  be  such  a  difference  in  nature 

37 

207' 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy     [ch. 

between   the   same   class   when   employed 
and  when  unemployed. 

Another  objection,  a  little  less  obviously 
irrational,  is,  that  if  the  Government  itself 
were  to  provide  all  its  Army  and  Navy 
clothing  and  other  necessary  stores,  wea- 
pons, etc.,  some  of  the  former  contractors 
will  be  ruined.  But  they  will  only  suffer 
if  they  have  hitherto  sweated  their  workers, 
and  you  cannot  abolish  sweating  without 
some  temporary  suffering  to  the  sweaters. 
But  even  such  employers  will  get  compen- 
sation. The  high  wages  paid  for  all  Govern- 
ment work  will  be  almost  wholly  spent  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  the  public  factories 
and  offices,  and  benefit  everybody  by  the 
increase  of  trade.  A  further  benefit  will 
accrue  through  the  increased  expenditure 
of  the  many  thousands  of  Custom  House, 
Excise,  Post  Office,  and  other  employees, 
whose  higher  wages  and  salaries  would  be 

immediately  distributed  among  the  various 

18 


VI]  Replies  to  Objections 

producers  and  retailers  of  the  necessaries 
and  comforts  of  life — that  is,  among  those 
constituting  what  we  term  generally  "  the 
middle  classes,"  who  may  be  said  to 
constitute  the  very  backbone  of  the 
country. 


CHAPTER   VII 

THE    PROBLEM    OF    WAGES 

High  Wages  are  Good  for  Everybody 

If  we  look  at  the  great  problem  of  wages, 
as  affecting  the  entire  life  and  well-being 
of  about  three-fourths  of  the  whole  popu- 
lation, and  try  and  divest  ourselves  of 
our  ideas  of  what  wages  a  particular  kind 
of  worker  is  worth,  without  any  regard 
to  the  material  and  mental  well-being  of 
his  wife  and  children,  we  shall  be  forced 
to  the  conclusion  that  nothing  is  so  hurtful 
to  the  community  at  large,  especially  to 
the  middle  classes,  as  for  the  wages  or 
earnings  of  all  kinds  of  workers  to  be  low ; 
and  nothing  is  so  beneficial  as  for  them 

to  be  high. 

40 


The  Problem  of  Wages 

A  Government  cannot  benefit  its  people 
at  large  more  surely  than  by  establishing 
a  very  high  minimum  wage  for  really 
necessary  or  useful  work.  Every  thinker 
agrees  (as  they  did  at  the  Industrial 
Remuneration  Conference  held  twenty-five 
years  ago)  that  our  aim  and  object  should 
be  *'  to  cause  wealth  to  he  more  equally 
distributed."  Yet,  during  the  whole  period 
that  has  elapsed  since  that  Conference  was 
held,  successive  Governments  have  acted 
as  if  their  object  was  the  very  reverse ; 
with  the  natural  result  of  increasing  the 
number  both  of  millionaires  at  one  end  of 
the  scale,  and  of  the  excessively  poor  and 
destitute  at  the  other.  And  they  actually 
claim  this  as  a  merit ;  for  their  supporters 
always  refer  to  the  increase  of  great  for- 
tunes made  mostly  by  foreign  trade  as  a 
proof  of  general  prosperity,  and  have 
always  resisted  giving  their  own  employees 
more  than  a  bare  competition  wage,  on  the 


41 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy     [ch 

ground  that  it  was  their  chief  duty  to  save 
the  pockets  of  the  taxpayers  ! 

The  Just  Basis  of  Taxation 
Till  quite  recently  our  various  Govern- 
ments, whatever  party  has  been  in  power, 
have  claimed  it  as  a  merit  that  they  have 
distributed  taxation  as  equally  as  possible 
over  the  whole  community,  on  the  ground 
that  the  very  poorest  ought  to  contribute 
something    towards    the    Government    of 
which  they  are  said  to  receive  the  benefits 
of  law  and  order  at  home,  and  protection 
from  invasion  by  foreign  armies.     We  are 
now  seeing  the  results  of  this  policy  in 
labour  unrest,  chronic  strikes,  and  terrible 
destitution.    The  beginning  of  a  juster  and 
wiser  policy  has  been  made  in  the  differen- 
tial taxation  of  very  large  incomes,   but 
only  a  very  small  beginning.    Justice  and 
humanity  alike  should  lead  us  to  see  that 
those  who,  by  their  hard  and  life-long  toil, 
have  created  and  still  create  the  whole  of 


VII]        The  Problem  of  Wages 

the  national  wealth,  should  not  be  taxed 
on  the  very  small  portion  of  that  wealth 
which  they  have  been  allowed  to  retain — 
a  bare  sufficiency  to  support  life.    Justice 
and  public  policy  alike  demand  that  every 
penny  of  taxation  should  be  taken  from 
the  superfluously  wealthy  at  or  near  the 
other  end  of  the  scale.     Thus,  and  thus 
only,  could  we  cause  the  present  insuffi- 
cient minimum  wage  to  rise,   first  above 
the  bare  subsistence  rate,  and  then  by  a 
steady   increase   to   an   amount   sufficient 
to  procure  for  all  our  workers  the  essentials 
for  a  full  and  enjoyable  existence.     Thus, 
and  thus  only,  can  we  solve  the  crucial 
problem    of    our    day,    that    of    the    long 
expected  and  perfectly  justifiable  revolt  of 
the   workers,    euphemistically   termed   the 
"  Labour  Unrest." 

The  Class-Prejudice  against  High  Wages 
Perhaps  more  difficult  to  overcome  than 

43 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy     [ch. 

the  supposed  economical  dangers  of  high 
wages  is  the  class-prejudice.  This  is  really 
due  to  differences  of  education,  of  forms 
of  speech  and  of  manners,  rather  than  to 
any  real  difference  either  in  physical  or 
mental  powers.  As  human  beings  the 
workers  with  their  hands,  commonly  called 
the  '*  working  class,"  know  themselves  to 
be  fully  equal  to  those  who  look  down 
upon  them  as  inferiors ;  and  they  are 
beginning  to  resent  this  claim  to  superiority. 
They  know,  too,  that  their  work  is  really 
more  important  than  that  of  many  pro- 
fessional men,  such  as  lawyers  and  the 
mass  of  Government  officials,  and  that  the 
scale  of  remuneration  of  the  two  classes 
should  be  more  nearly  alike.  The  idea  that 
the  work  of  a  carpenter  or  engineer,  of  a 
bricklayer  or  of  a  ploughman  is  intrinsically 
worth  less  than  that  of  a  Member  of  Parlia- 
ment, an  officer  in  the  Army,  or  the  owner 
of   a   cotton-mill   they   no    longer   accept. 

44 


vn]         The  Problem  of  Wages 

They  have  read  history,  and  they  know 
that  these  class-ideas  are  derived  from 
feudal  times,  when  all  manual  labour  was 
done  by  serfs,  or  by  peasants  only  one 
degree  higher  in  the  scale.  They  see 
many  of  their  own  class  becoming  rich, 
and  then  being  received  as  equals  by 
those  who  term  themselves  "  Society  "  ; 
and  they  see,  too,  that  these  upstarts,  as 
they  are  sometimes  termed,  are  often  not 
even  the  best  examples  of  their  own  class. 

It  is  this  widespread  belief  in  there 
being  a  ''  lower  class  "  among  us — hewers 
of  wood  and  drawers  of  water — whose 
intrinsic  worth  as  human  beings  is  measured 
by  the  small  wages  they  receive,  that 
causes  the  proposal  to  raise  their  earnings 
to  what  we  now  term  "  a  living  wage  "  to 
be  widely  resented,  as  if  it  were  something 
dangerous,  unnecessary,  or  even  immoral. 

Most  liberal  thinkers  now  agree  that 
wages  ought  to  be  much  higher  than  they 

45 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy     [ch 

are ;  but  unless  they  rise  automatically 
in  obedience  to  some  mysterious  eco- 
nomic law,  not  even  the  most  advanced 
Government  in  the  most  advanced  country 
in  the  world  has  yet  dared  to  make  the 
attempt  to  improve  the  condition  of  its 
vast  army  of  employees  by  raising  them, 
on  principle,  well  above  "  the  margin  of 
poverty."  So  great  and  so  widespread  is 
this  objection  that  there  are,  perhaps,  not 
more  than  two  or  three  members  of  our 
present  Government  who  would  welcome 
with  any  approach  to  enthusiasm  such  a 
proposal  as  I  have  outlined  here.  When 
it  was  recently  stated  that  certain  classes 
of  men  in  the  Navy  were  to  receive  an 
increase  of  pay  it  was  at  first  denied, 
as  if  it  were  too  extravagant  to  be 
thought  of  by  an  economical  Liberal 
Government. 

It  is,   however,   certain  that  we  have 
now  reached  a  point  in  our  political  history 

46 


VII]         The  Problem  of  Wages 

which  will  necessitate  much  more  direct 
and  radical  measures  than  have  yet  been 
taken  to  ensure  the  immediate  abolition 
of  that  disgrace  of  our  civilisation — starva- 
tion, and  suicide  from  dread  of  starvation. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  I  have  now 
placed  before  the  public  the  simplest  and 
most  direct  method  of  doing  this,  with- 
out any  special  legislation  ;  and  I  most 
earnestly  urge  the  Labour  Party,  as  well 
as  advanced  thinkers  of  all  parties  in 
Parliament,  to  use  their  influence  with  the 
present  Government  to  give  it  effect. 

The  wages  of  the  lower  classes  of 
Government  clerks,  etc.,  are,  I  believe, 
being  frequently  modified  by  the  various 
heads  of  departments  without  any  special 
sanction  from  Parliament  ;  and  as  I  have 
now  shown  how  every  step  of  the  process 
of  more  equal  wealth-distribution  by  a 
steady  rise  of  wages  will  injure  few  or 
none,  but  will  in  various  ways  benefit  us 

47 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy      [ch 

all,    there   can   be   no   sufficiently   serious 
objection  to  its  being  immediately  begun. 

I  would  also  with  equal  earnestness 
urge  upon  the  Government  itself  to  press 
forward  this  matter — the  abolition  of  desti- 
tution— without  a  single  day's  further  delay. 
Every  day  sees  numerous  deaths  by  starv- 
ation at  our  very  doors.  Yet  these  have 
come  to  be  looked  upon  as  due  to  "  natural 
causes,"  implying  that  it  is  quite  a  natural 
and  inevitable  thing  that,  in  this  super- 
wealthy  country,  thousands  of  men,  women, 
and  children  should  be  continually  starv- 
ing !  Were  not  the  position  so  terribly,  so 
disgracefully  pathetic,  it  would  be  ludic- 
rous. It  reminds  one  of  David  Copper- 
field's  arrival  at  his  aunt's  house  at  Dover 
in  a  dreadfully  dilapidated  condition  after 
a  six  days'  walk  from  London,  having 
slept  every  night  in  the  fields.  Mr.  Dick 
was  called  to  hear  his  story  ;  and  on  being 
asked  by  Miss  Betsy  Trotwood  what  she 


VII]         The  Problem  of  Wages 

should  do  with  him,  looked  him  all  over 
very  carefully,  and  said  without  hesita- 
tion :  "  If  I  were  you,  I  should  wash  him." 
On  which  Miss  Betsy  ordered  a  hot  bath 
to  be  got  ready,  declaring  that  Mr.  Dick 
sets  us  all  right ! 

But  the  most  advanced  and  Liberal 
Government  we  have  ever  had,  has  for 
the  last  seven  years  looked  on  tens  of 
thousands  of  destitute  humanity  far  worse 
off  than  was  David  Copperfield,  without 
arriving  at  the  practical  wisdom  of  first 
feeding  and  clothing  them,  and  afterwards 
inquiring  and  discussing  how  to  prevent 
them  from  getting  into  the  same  trouble 
again.  I,  therefore,  take  the  place  of  poor 
Mr.  Dick  as  an  adviser,  and  venture  to 
assure  them  that  the  problem  is  not  really 
insoluble,  and  that  the  common  idea,  that 
the  pitiable  condition  of  the  starving 
population  is  "  their  own  fault,''  is  not  the 
correct  diagnosis  of  this  social  disease. 


49 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy     [ch 

Popular  Errors  as  to  the  Effects  of  High 
Wages  on  Prices 

One  of  the  most  common  objections  to 
a  general  increase  of  wages,  and  one  of  the 
most  difficult  to  reply  to,  is,  that  it  would 
inevitably  lead  to  a  general  rise  of  prices, 
equal  to,  and  sometimes  greater  than,  the 
increase  of  wages.  The  reason  why  it  is 
difhcult  to  reply  to  this  supposed  fact  is 
because  the  retail  prices  of  the  necessaries 
of  life  depend  upon  a  variety  of  causes,  of 
which  a  rise  or  fall  in  the  wages  of  those 
who  produce  them  is  sometimes  an  import- 
ant and  at  other  times  a  very  unimportant 
item  ;  and  also  because,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  wages  and  prices  have,  sometimes, 
risen  or  fallen  together  as  if  they  were 
directly  connected. 

This  whole  question  of  the  well-being 
of  the  wage-receiving  classes  is  often 
obscured  by  considering  wages  alone,  or 
hours  of  working,  or  prices  of  food,  which 

5° 


vu]        The  Problem  of  Wages 

may  all  vary  in  different  degrees,  and  be 
due  to  quite  different  causes.  The  result 
thus  reached  is  often  largely  modified  by 
an  increase  of  rents,  of  rates,  or  in  the 
price  of  such  a  necessary  as  coals,  while  a 
still  further  complication  is  introduced  by 
local  causes,  such  as  the  time,  labour,  or 
cost  of  reaching  his  place  of  work,  which 
may  seriously  reduce  a  workman's  net 
earnings,  as  well  as  his  hours  of  actual 
labour.  Personal  observation  during  the 
last  fifty  years  leads  me  to  conclude  that, 
amid  constant  fluctuations  in  wages  and 
in  food  prices,  and  constant  rise  in  the 
rental  of  houses  and  of  land,  the  average 
wage-earner  has  continued  to  live  in  much 
the  same  low  condition  as  regards  the 
necessaries  and  comforts  of  life. 

But  during  this  whole  period  there  has 
been  a  continuous  increase  in  the  numbers 
of  the  very  poor,  the  destitute,  and  the 
actually  starving  ;    serving  as  a  balance  to 

5» 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy 

a  similar  increase  in  the  numbers  of  those 
who  Uve  in  great  or  superfluous  luxury. 
Let  us  then  endeavour  to  see  how  this 
long-continued  process  and  baneful  result 
can  be  changed  in  the  future. 


CHAPTER    VIII 

SELF-SUPPORTING   WORK    THE    REMEDY 
FOR    UNEMPLOYMENT. 

As  a  matter  of  public  policy,  no  less  than 
of  common  humanity,  it  is  essential  that 
all  Government  and  municipal  employees, 
including  labourers  of  all  kinds,  be  paid 
a  full  and  sufficient  living  wage  as  a  mini- 
mum, rising  to  at  least  the  highest  trades 
union  wages  at  the  time.  To  prevent  any 
lowering  of  the  latter,  by  increase  of 
population,  fluctuations  in  trade,  new 
labour-saving  machinery  and  other  causes 
of  unemployment,  it  is  equally  essential 
that  those  who  have  hitherto  been  dis- 
charged when  no  longer  wanted  should  be 
provided  with  self-supporting  work. 

This  can  best  be  done  in  connection 

53 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy     [ch 

with  the  re-occupation  of  the  land,  which 
is  now  seen  to  be  of  vital  importance  by 
most  social  reformers.  No  more  blind  and 
disastrous  policy  has  ever  been  pursued  by 
a  civilised  community  than  that  of  our 
wealthy  and  money-making  classes,  who 
have  during  half-a-century,  in  pursuit  of 
wealth,  discouraged  the  cultivation  of  land, 
and  forced  the  inhabitants  of  our  once 
numerous  self-supporting  villages,  and 
especially  our  half-starved  agricultural 
labourers,  into  the  cities  and  towns,  to  be 
exploited  by  manufacturers  and  landlords. 
The  result  to-day  is  a  vast  mass  of  unem- 
ployed, keeping  down  wages  to  the  starving 
point,  together  with  an  infant  mortality  that 
is  a  disgrace  to  a  civilised  community. 

Having  thus  destroyed  the  old  rural 
populations  which  were  for  centuries  the 
pride  and  strength  of  Britain,  it  now  be- 
comes the  duty  of  the  Government  to 
build  up  a  new  and  a  better  form  of  rural 

54 


VIII]  The  Remedy  for  Unemployment 

society  to  replace  it.  To  do  this  we  require 
far  stronger  measures  than  the  miserable 
red-tapism  of  our  Small  Holdings  Acts, 
which  are  ludicrously  ineffective  and  even 
harmful.  We  have  examples  in  Denmark, 
in  Italy,  and  even  in  Ireland,  of  admirable 
results  of  co-operative  cultivation,  where 
extensive  areas  of  land  are  dealt  with,  and 
either  private  or  municipal  associations 
help  on  the  work. 

For  this  purpose  a  large  portion  of  the 
agricultural  land  of  England,  which  has 
been  so  misused  by  its  owners,  must  be 
acquired  by  the  Government  in  trust  for 
the  nation.  This  can  be  best  done  by  a 
further  increase  of  the  death  duties  and 
land  taxes  ;  to  be  paid  in  land  itself 
instead  of  in  money :  while,  wherever 
there  are  no  direct  heirs  who  may  have 
a  sentimental  affection  for  their  ancestral 
home,  large  landed  estates  of  suitable 
character  and  position  should  be  purchased 


55 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy     [ch 

at  the  official  valuation  and  utilised  at 
once  either  by  the  State,  the  municipality, 
trade  unions,  or  co-operative  societies,  to 
establish  self-supporting  colonies,  on  the 
plan  fiist  clearly  described  by  Mr.  Herbert 
V.  Mills  in  his  Poverty  and  the  State,  and 
further  developed  by  myself  in  the  second 
volume  of  my  Studies,  Scientific  and  Social. 
The  great  essentials  in  starting  such 
methods  of  dealing  with  the  problems  of 
poverty  and  unemployment  are  liberality 
and  sympathy.  Ample  funds  should  be 
provided  for  supporting  each  colony  for 
the  first  two  or  three  years ;  the  land 
should  be  rent-free  for  at  least  the  same 
period  ;  and  the  greatest  amount  of  liberty 
should  be  given  to  all  the  workers  com- 
patible with  the  success  of  the  experiments. 
No  expense  can  be  too  great  to  establish 
a  system  of  land  re-occupation  which  will 
abolish    poverty  ;    and   just    as    certainly 

as     a     continuous     rise     in     wages     wdll 

56 


vm]   The  Remedy  for  Unemployment 

repay  its  cost  in  the  general  well-being  of 
the  lower  and  middle  classes,  so,  with 
equal  certainty,  will  the  still  greater  ex- 
penditure necessary  for  the  productive 
re-occupation  of  our  uncultivated  or  half- 
cultivated  soil  complete  the  regeneration, 
the  power,  and  the  safety  of  the  British 
nation. 

Everyone  interested  in  the  subject  here 
discussed  should  read  Our  National  Food 
Supply,  by  James  Lumsden :  perhaps  the 
most  original,  suggestive,  and  vitally  im- 
portant work  on  the  subject  that  has  yet 
appeared. 

One  of  the  injurious  results  of  our 
competitive  system,  having  its  roots,  how- 
ever, in  the  valuable  "  guilds  "  of  a  past 
epoch,  is  the  almost  universal  restriction 
of  our  workers  to  one  kind  of  labour  only. 
The  result  is  a  dreadful  monotony  in  almost 
all  kinds  of  work,  the  extreme  unhealthi- 
ness  of  many,  and  a  much  larger  amount 

57 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy     [ch 

of  unemployment  than  if  each  man  or 
woman  were  regularly  trained  in  two  or 
more  occupations.  In  addition  to  two  of 
what  are  commonly  called  trades,  every 
youth  should  be  trained  for  one  day  a 
week  or  one  week  in  a  month,  according 
to  demand  for  labour,  in  some  of  the 
various  operations  of  farming  or  gardening. 
Not  only  would  this  improve  the  general 
health  of  the  workers,  but  also  add  much 
to  the  interest  and  enjoyment  of  their 
lives.  This  is  a  matter  of  great  national 
importance,  because  it  would  supply  in 
every  locality  a  body  of  trained  workers 
ready  to  assist  the  farmers  at  all  critical 
periods,  and  thus  save  valuable  crops  from 
almost  total  loss  during  unfavourable 
seasons.  The  gain  to  the  whole  nation  by 
such  a  supply  of  labour,  whenever  needed, 
would  be  enormous,  and  it  would 
also  lead  to  pleasant  social  meetings  like 

those  of  the   "  bees "   in  the  early  years 

5S 


viii]    The  Remedy  for  Unemployment 

of  American  colonisation.  Such  gatherings 
would  combine  a  holiday  with  national 
service,  when  the  whole  strength  of  the 
population  would  be  put  forth  to  save 
the  national  food. 

This  form  of  multiple  industrial  train- 
ing should  be  commenced  at  once  in  con- 
nection with  all  Government  employment  ; 
and  it  should  be  further  developed  as  a 
part  of  our  system  of  education,   in  the 
various  colonies  or  villages  established  for 
the   absorption   of   the  unemployed.      Its 
advantages  would  be  so  great  both  to  the 
workers  and  to  the  nation,  that  the  various 
trade  unions   may  be   expected  to   adopt 
it ;    and  they  should  be  assisted  to  do  so 
by  ample  Government  grants,  or  by  the 
free    provision  of  the  land  and  buildings 
required,  so  long  as  they  were  used  for  this 
great  national  service. 


CHAPTER    IX 

THE    ECONOMIES   OF    CO-ORDINATED    LABOUR 

It  may  be  well  here  to  consider  what 
would  be  the  economic  result  if  the 
labour  of  the  whole  country  were  com- 
pletely organised  and  its  various  depart- 
ments co-ordinated,  so  that  production  and 
consumption  should  be  as  nearly  as  possible 
balanced  in  the  various  local  communities. 
This  local  co-ordination  of  production  and 
distribution  has  never,  hitherto,  been  at- 
tempted on  an  adequate  scale,  yet  it  is 
through  such  co-ordination  alone  that  co- 
operative labour  can  produce  its  most 
beneficial  results,  by  means  of  a  number  of 
hitherto  unknown  and  apparently  almost 
unsuspected   economies,    to   the   enormous 

gain  of  the  whole  community.   The  more  im- 

60 


Co-ordinated  Labour 

portant  of  these  may  be  briefly  enumerated. 
The  first  of  these  great  economies  would 
arise  from  the  absence  of  surplus  crops  or 
manufactured  goods  beyond  the  ascer- 
tained monthly  or  yearly  amount  required 
for  the  use  of  the  local  population.  From 
this  approximate  balance  of  production 
with  consumption  the  proportional  cost  of 
each  article  in  labour-power  would  be 
calculated,  and  their  several  exchange- 
values  or  true  economic  prices  be  ascer- 
tained. The  use  of  a  more  expensive 
article  when  a  less  costly  one  would  be 
equally  serviceable  would  then  be  easily 
checked,  and  the  great  loss  incurred  by  the 
forced  sale  of  such  articles  would  cease. 

Far  more  important  than  this,  however, 
would  be  the  entire  abolition  of  every 
form  of  advertisement,  such  as  those  in 
our  newspapers  and  placards,  in  costly 
shop-windows,  in  high  rents,  and  in  the 
employment   of   a   whole   army  of  agents 


6i 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy  [ch. 
and  commercial  travellers,  whose  business 
is  to  puff  and  exaggerate  the  qualities  of 
their  respective  goods,  so  as  to  induce 
retailers  and  private  purchasers  to  buy 
things  that  are  of  little  or  no  use  to  them, 
and  often,  as  in  the  case  of  foods  and 
medicines,  positively  injurious. 

It  has  been  estimated  that,  on  the 
average,  these  costly  processes  of  com- 
petitive sale  lead  to  the  consumer  paying 
about  double,  and  in  some  cases  much 
more  than  double,  the  real  cost  of  produc- 
tion. Here,  then,  we  have  an  economy 
which  would  enable  wages  to  be  largely 
increased,  and  sometimes  even  doubled, 
without  adding  to  the  retail  price  of  the 
various  necessaries  or  comforts  of  life.  But 
even  this  would  not  be  the  whole  of  the 
economy  that  would  follow  such  a  mode  of 
truly  co-ordinated  production  for  use  and 
not  for  profit.    It  is  well  known  that  in  all 

manufactured  goods  a  large  economy  results 

62 


K]  Co-ordinated  Labour 

from  an  increased  demand,  enabling 
the  whole  of  the  machinery  to  be  almost 
continuously  employed  at  its  full  power. 
In  addition  to  this,  another  economy 
of  the  same  nature,  but  perhaps  of  still 
greater  extent,  would  arise  from  there 
being  no  such  necessity  for  the  manu- 
facture of  new  articles  or  new  patterns 
or  colours  every  year,  as  the  competition 
of  numerous  manufacturers  now  compels 
them  to  seek  for.  These  new  things  or  pat- 
terns are  often  very  inferior  to  the  older 
ones,  which  the  purchaser  is  assured  "  are 
quite  gone  out  now." 

As  a  concomitant  of  the  competitive 
system,  two  almost  world-wide  immoralities 
are  created  :  one  is  the  universal  practice  of 
adulteration  and  the  accompanying  false 
descriptions  of  things  sold  ;  the  other  is 
the  equally  vast  system  of  false  weights  and 
measures,  which,  though  of  small  amount 

to  each  purchaser,  secures  an  unfair  profit 

63 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy     [ch 

at  his  expense.     Our  present  competitive 
social  system  is,  therefore,  necessarily  im- 
moral, as  well  as  extremely  wasteful ;   yet, 
strange  to  say,  it  is  almost  universally  held 
to    be    a    necessary    and    a   right   system, 
founded  on  natural  and  unchangeable  laws 
of  social  life.    Those  who  see  most  clearly 
its  evil  results,   and  trace  them  to  their 
root    causes,    monopoly    and    competition, 
are  almost  alwa3^s  condemned  as  unprac- 
tical idealists  or  dangerous  revolutionists. 
Another  proof  of  the  fundamental  error 
of  this  system  of  society  which  is  held  to 
be  so  good  and  sacred  as  to  be  essentially 
unalterable  is  equally  conducive.    For  more 
than  a  century  this  system  has  been  slowly 
elaborated  by  a  body  of  able  men  who  are 
so  admired  by  us,  that  we  term  them  our 
"Merchant   princes"    and   our   "Captains 
of  industry."   Many  of  them  are  enormously 
wealthy  and  are  supposed  to  be  especially 

qualified  as  Members  of  Parliament,   and 

64 


IX]  Co-ordinated  Labour 

they  possess  great  influence  in  directing  the 
course  of  legislation.  Yet  this  wealth  and 
power  were  obtained  by  means  of  a  system 
of  industry  which  soon  became  a  byword 
for  all  that  was  vile  and  degrading  to  the 
workers  who  were  employed.  Everything 
was  arranged  so  as  to  get  the  most  profit 
out  of  the  "  hands,"  as  the  factory- workers 
were  termed.  The  mills  were  unhealthy, 
the  wages  low,  and  the  hours  of  labour 
long.  In  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  children  of  five  or  six  years  old 
were  kept  in  the  mills  thirteen  or  fourteen 
hours  a  day,  and  were  often  flogged  by  the 
overseers  to  keep  them  awake  ;  and  it 
needed  a  long  succession  of  Factory  Laws, 
all  bitterly  opposed  by  the  employers,  to 
mitigate  the  evils  which  till  recently  existed, 
and  which  were  only  got  rid  of  by  the 
continued  efforts  of  a  few  determined 
humanitarians.  An  army  of  inspectors 
had  to  be  appointed  to  see  that  these  laws 

H  65 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy  [ch 
were  obeyed.  Yet  even  now  the  net  result 
of  our  strictly  supervised  manufacturing 
system  is  that  whole  districts  are  defaced 
by  dense  palls  of  smoke,  and  the  vegeta- 
tion is  often  destroyed  by  poisonous 
vapours ;  that  our  great  cities  are  dis- 
figured by  hideous  and  filthy  slums  ;  that 
a  large  proportion  of  our  manufactures  are 
carried  on  under  such  conditions  as  to 
produce  painful  disabling  or  fatal  diseases  ; 
while  the  infant  mortality  in  all  these  areas 
of  wealth-production,  of  which  we  are  so 
proud,  is  about  double  what  it  is  in  other 
parts  of  the  same  towns  or  cities. 

The  various  facts  and  considerations 
now  adduced  demonstrate  that  a  well- 
arranged  system  of  co-operative  production 
and  co-ordinated  distribution,  whether 
carried  out  by  the  Government,  muni- 
cipality, or  private  associations  of  the 
workers,   which  the    trade  unions    them- 

66 


IX]  Co-ordinated  Labour 

selves  might  combine  to  establish,  would 
result  in  so  many  economies  in  various 
directions  as  to  render  it  possible  in  a  few 
years  to  double,  or  more  than  double,  the 
effective  wages  the  workers  now  receive, 
but  which,  under  existing  conditions,  they 
can  only  hope  to  raise  by  the  slow  and 
costly  process  of  recurrent  strikes.  This 
sketch  of  the  economics  of  the  problem  is 
now  brought  before  the  Labour  Party  in. 
order  that  it  may  have  a  definite  pro- 
gramme to  work  for,  and  may  be  able  to 
enforce  its  claims  upon  the  Government 
with  all  the  weight  of  its  combined  and 
determined  action.  I 


CHAPTER    X 

THE  EFFECT  OF  HIGH  WAGES  UPON  FOREIGN 
TRADE 

I  HAVE  now  shown  that  an  increase  in  the 
rate  of  wages  does  not  necessarily  raise 
prices  in  a  proportionate  degree,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  that,  under  conditions  not 
difficult  to  obtain,  such  enormous  econo- 
mies both  in  production  and  distribution 
may  be  effected  as  to  result  in  a  very  large 
balance  in  favour  both  of  the  producer 
and  the  consumer.  This,  however,  relates 
to  our  home  trade  only,  and  it  will  be  said, 
and  has  often  been  said,  that  as  regards 
our  foreign  trade  the  case  is  quite  different. 
In  such  goods  as  minerals,  metal-work,  and 
most  textile  fabrics,  wages  form  a  large 
portion  of  the  cost,  and  it  is  argued  that  a 

6S 


High  Wages  and  Foreign  Trade 

considerable  rise  will  render  us  quite  un- 
able to  compete  with  Germany,  France,  or 
America  in  the  chief  markets  of  the  world. 
Now,  it  is  a  remarkable  circumstance 
that  the  Labour  Party  and  their  friends  in 
and  out  of  Parliament  seem  to  be  quite 
unaware  of  the  fallacy  of  this  statement. 
It  is  quite  true  that  if  wages  rose  in  one 
industry  only,  our  foreign  trade  might  be 
injured  or  even  ruined  in  those  special 
goods.  But  if,  as  is  here  supposed  to  be 
the  case,  there  was  a  general  rise  of  wages 
in  all  industries,  such  as  would  be  caused 
by  bringing  about  a  high  "  living  wage," 
sufficient  at  its  lowest  to  keep  every  work- 
man and  his  family  in  health  and  comfort 
with  a  reasonable  amount  of  the  enjoy- 
ments of  life,  then  our  foreign  trade  in 
the  markets  of  the  world  would  not 
in  any  way  be  diminished  or  become  less 
profitable. 

This  results  from  the  fact  admitted  by 
69 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy     [ch 

all  political  economists,  that  foreign  trade 
is  essentially  barter,  since  we  send  abroad 
those  goods  which  we  produce  at  the 
lowest  cost  proportionately,  and  import 
those  only  which  no  other  country  pro- 
duces at  a  lower  proportionate  cost  than 
we  do.  In  this  set  of  transactions,  as  a 
whole,  the  part  played  by  money  is  merely 
to  enable  both  parties  to  keep  their  ac- 
counts and  determine  what  goods  it  is 
advantageous  to  them  to  export  and  what 
to  import.  Hence  money  has  been  defined 
as  the  "  tool  of  exchange."  If,  therefore, 
our  wages  bill  were  doubled  by  the  adop- 
tion of  a  high  "  minimum  wage,"  that 
would  not  make  any  alteration  (or  very 
little)  in  the  proportionate  cost  of  the  things 
we  export  and  those  we  import. 

This  question  is  discussed  with  great 
care  and  thoroughness  by  J.  S.  Mill,  in 
his  great  work,  The  Principles  of  Political 

Economy  ;   but   as  the   subject   is   referred 

70 


X]   High  Wages  and  Foreign  Trade 

to  more  than  once,  and  for  different  pur- 
poses, it  requires  very  close  attention  to 
realise  its  full  importance.  It  is  discussed 
most  fully  in  his  Book  III.,  Chap.  XVII., 
"Of  International  Trade,"  where  he  says  : 

"  It  is  not  a  difference  in  the  absolute  cost  of  pro- 
duction which  determines  the  interchange,  but  a 
difference  in  the  comparative  cost  "  ; 

and  this  is  illustrated  by  an  account  of 
many  actual  cases  of  our  dealings  with 
other  countries,  in  which  he  shows  that — 

"  We  may  often  by  trading  with  foreigners  obtain 
their  commodities  at  a  smaller  expense  of  labour  and 
capital  than  they  coad  to  the  foreigners  themselves. 
The  bargain  is  still  advantageous  to  the  foreigner, 
because  the  commodity  which  he  receives  in  ex- 
change, though  it  has  cost  us  less,  would  have  cost 
him  more." 

Then,  later  on,  in  Chap.  XXV.  of  the 

same  Book,  dealing  with  "  Competition  of 

Countries  in  the  same  Market  "  (page  414 

of  The  People's   Edition),   he  says,   as  a 

71 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy     [ch. 

terse  summary  of  the  facts  and  arguments 
he  has  set  forth : 

"  General  low  wages  never  caused  any  country 
to  undersell  its  rivals,  nor  did  general  high  wages 
ever  hinder  it  from  doing  so." 

I  venture  to  hope  that,  in  future,  the 
speakers  among  the  Labour  Party  in  Par- 
liament will  not  allow  the  bugbear  of 
"  ruin  to  our  foreign  trade "  to  deter 
them  from  claiming  their  admitted  right 
to  a  "  living  wage"  throughout  the  whole 
country.  Such  wage  must  be  determined 
by  what  is  needed  to  supply  an  average 
working-man's  family  with  all  the  neces- 
saries of  life  in  ample  abundance,  together 
with  all  such  modest  comforts  as  are 
beneficial  to  health  of  mind  and  body. 
It  must  be  estimated  as  payment  for  five 
or  five  and  a  half  days  of  eight  hours 
each  at  the  utmost,  any  overtime  neces- 
sitated by  the  nature  of  the  employment 

72 


xj   High  Wages  and  Foreign  Trade 

or  by  exceptional    events    to  be  paid  at 
double  the  normal  rates. 

I  have  now  shown  that  a  general  rise 
of  wages,  if  accompanied  by  the  absorp- 
tion of  all  the  unemployed  in  duly  co- 
ordinated productive  labour,  so  far  from 
raising  prices  in  the  open  market,  will 
result  in  so  many  and  such  great  econo- 
mies as  to  allow  of  a  considerable  lowering 
of  price  of  the  chief  necessaries  and  com- 
forts of  Hfe,  and  will,  therefore,  add  still 
further  to  the  well-being  of  the  whole  of 
the  workers,  whether  skilled  or  unskilled, 
whether  receiving  wages  from  capitalist 
employers,  or  working  in  co-operative  and 
self-supporting  village  communities. 


H* 


CHAPTER    XI 

THE    RATIONAL    SOLUTION    OF    THE    LABOUR 
PROBLEM 

I  HAVE  now  endeavoured  to  place  before 
my  readers,  and  especially  before  the 
Labour  Party,  the  series  of  economic 
fallacies  which  alone  prevent  them  from 
claiming  and  obtaining,  for  the  workers 
of  the  whole  country,  a  continuously  in- 
creasing share  of  the  entire  product  of 
their  labour. 

The  chief  of  these  fallacies  is,  that  there 
is  any  necessary  connection  between  wages 
and  prices,  so  that  the  former  cannot  be 
raised  without  the  latter  increasing  also 
to  an  equal  amount.  Of  course,  in  such 
a  fundamentally  unjust  social  system  as 
that  in  which  we  live,  we  cannot  abolish 

74 


A  Rational  Solution 

all  the  wrongs  and  evils  of  low  wages, 
unemployment,  and  starvation,  by  a  more 
just  and  rational  system  without  partial 
and  temporary  losses  to  a  few  individuals  ; 
but  by  adopting  the  course  here  advo- 
cated, these  losses  will  be  small  in  amount 
and  quickly  remedied.  This  will  be  es- 
pecially the  case  with  our  foreign  trade, 
as  to  which  it  has  been  again  and 
again  asserted  that  higher  wages  will 
lead  to  ruin.  But,  as  has  been  clearly 
shown  in  the  preceding  chapter,  no  such 
loss  would  occur  if  high  wages  were 
universal,  such  as  would  result  from  a 
general  minimum  of  30s.  or  £2  a  week 
for  every  adult  worker  in  the  kingdom, 
while  a  large  maj  ority  would  receive  much 
more  than  this.  Even  in  such  an  extreme 
case  as  this  our  merchants  might  continue 
to  export  and  import  the  same  products 
in    the    same    quantities    as    before,   and 

with  the  same  average  amount  of  profit. 

75 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy     [ch. 

Recurring  to  the  statements  of  Mr. 
Vernon  Hartshorn  and  Mr.  Anderson  as 
to  what  the  workers  insist  upon  as  the 
very  lowest  living  wage,  but  which  it  is 
clear  they  will  never  obtain  by  negotiation 
with  their  employers,  I  again  urge  upon 
them  to  concentrate  their  rapidly  increas- 
ing influence  and  voting  power  upon  the 
Government,  compelling  it  to  use  the  full 
resources  of  the  National  Credit  to  abolish 
starvation  at  once,  and  simultaneously 
to  organise  the  vast  body  of  Government 
employees  in  such  a  manner  as  to  be  able 
to  absorb  into  its  ranks  the  whole  of  the 
unemployed  workers  as  they  arise.  These 
may  be  looked  upon  as  the  waste  product 
of  our  disorganised  and  inhuman  com- 
petitive system,  indicating  the  fermenta- 
tion and  disease  ever  going  on  in  its  lower 
depths. 

The    principle    of    competition — a    life 

and   death   struggle   for   bare   existence — 

76 


XI]  A  Rational  Solution 

has  had  more  than  a  century's  unbroken 
trial  under  conditions  created  by  its  up- 
holders, and  it  has  absolutely  failed.  The 
workers,  now  for  the  first  time,  know  why 
it  is  that  with  ever-increasing  production 
of  wealth  so  many  of  them  still  suffer  the 
most  terrible  extremes  of  want  and  of 
preventable  disease.  There  must,  there- 
fore, be  no  further  compromise,  no  mere 
talking.  To  allow  the  present  state  of 
things  to  continue  is  a  crime  against 
humanity.  Any  Government  that  will  not 
abolish  starvation  in  this  land  of  super- 
fluous wealth  must  be  driven  from  power. 
The  forces  of  Labour,  if  united  in  the 
demand  for  this  one  primary  object,  must 
and  will  succeed.  Then  will  easily  follow 
the  general  rise  of  wages  at  the  cost  of 
our  unprecedented  individual  wealth,  and 
the  absorption  of  the  unemployed  in  self- 
supporting  communities,  re-occupying  our 
deserted  land,  and  bringing  about  a  more 

77 


The  Revolt  of  Democracy 

general  and  more  beneficial  prosperity  than 
our  country  has  ever  before  enjoyed. 

This  must  be  the  great  and  noble 
work  of  our  statesmen  of  to-day  and  of 
to-morrow.  May  they  prove  themselves 
equal  to  the  great  opportunity  which  the 
justifiable  revolt  of  Labour  has  now 
afforded  them. 


INDEX 


Acts  of  Parliament,  aggravation 

of  social  disease  by,  6 
Adulteration,  immorality  of,  63 
Advertisement,  abolition  of,  61 
Anderson,    Mr.,    on    the    labour 

problem,  20,  76 
Asquith,  Mr.,  8 
—  and  minimum  wage,  28 

"  Bees,"  American,  58 
Booth,  Mr.  C,  32 
Bread,  free,  advocated,  24 
Budget  of  1909,  8 
Burns,  Mr.  John,  8 

CampbeItL-Bannerman,  Sir  H., 
on  the  duty  of   a  govern- 
ment, 7 
Capitalism,  private,  3 
Capitahsts,  4 
Charity,  sufficiency  of,  23 
Children,  employment  of,  65 
Civil  Service,  Government  and, 

31 
Civilisation,  conditions  of  work- 
ers disgrace  to,  12 
Class  ideas,  44 
— ,  parasites  of  wealthy,  4 
— ,  upper,  creation  of  an,  2 
Colonies,  self-supporting,  56 
Competitive  system,  aboUtion  of, 
by  co-ordinated  labour,  60 

,  creators  of,  64 

,  evils  of,  5 

,  failiure  of,  76 

,  immoralities  of,  63 

,  outhne  of,  3 

,  results  of,  on  workers,  5  7 

.  wastefulness  of,  63 


Contract  work,  Government  and, 

34,  38 
Co-operative  agriculture,   55 

—  distribution,  66 

—  economies,  60 

—  labour,  effects  of,  on  wages, 

66 

Death  Duties,  34,  55 
Democracy  its  own  emancipator, 

15 

Denmark,  co-operative  cultiva- 
tion in,  55 

Destitution,  2,  7 

— ,  co-operative,  66 

— ,  Government  and,  23,  26,  47 

— ,  increase  of,  51  (see  also 
Poverty,  Starvation) 

Disease,  social,   3 

Diseases,  industrial,  66 

Drage,  Mr.  G.,  on  the  labour 
problem,   19 

Education    21 

—  and  class- prejudice,  44 

— ,  industrial,   as  a  remedy  for 

unemployment,  58 
Eight  hours  day,   14 
Employment,  Government, 

scheme  of,  28 

,  objections  to,  35 

Era,  dawn  of  a  new,  7 
Exchange,    money    simply    the 

tool  of,  70 

Factories,  removal  of,  to  coun- 
try, 34 
Factory  laws,  65 


79 


Index 


Farming,  need  for  education  in, 

58 
Foreign  trade,  75 
,  effects  of  high  wages  on, 

68 

,  increase  of,  41 

is  barter,  70 

,  J.  Stuart  Mill  on,  70 

Gardening,  need  for  education 

in,  58 
George,  Mr.  D.  Lloyd,  8,  36 
Gladstone,  W.  K.,  and  the  social 

disease,  6 
Government     and     agricultural 

land,  55 

—  and  Civil  Service,   31 

—  and  contract  work,  34,   38 

—  and  destitution,  23,  26,  47 
— ,  duty  of,   7,  22 

—  employment,  minimum  wage 

for,  76 

,  objection  to,  35 

,  scheme  of,  28 

wages,  47 

—  and  industrial  education,  59 
Guardians  of  the  Poor,  6 

Harcourt,   Sir  \Vm.,    and    the 

social  disease,  6 
Harrison,  Mr.  F.,  on  the  labour 

problem,   1 8 
Hartshorn,     Mr.     V.,     on     the 

workers'   claims,   14,  76 
Housing,  21 

Industrial  conditions  in  nine- 
teenth century,  64 

—  disease,  3 

—  diseases,  66 

—  education    as   a  remedy   for 

unemployment,   58 

—  peace,  path  to,   17 

—  Remuneration  Conference,  41 
Infant  mortality,   54,  66 
Inquiries,     Parliamentary,    inef- 
fectiveness of,   I 


Invention  of  machinery,  2 
Ireland,  co-operative  cultivation 

in,  5  5 
Italy,     co-operative    cultivation 

in,  5  5 

Labour,  battle  cry  of,  21 
— ,  co-ordinated,   economies  of, 
60 

—  Party,  and  theory  of  wages, 

69. 

,  demand  of,  for  remedy  for 

social  disease,  27 

—  problem,  economics  of,  66 
,  fallacies  concerning,  74 

—  — ,  restriction  of  workers,  57 
,  solution  of,  74 

—  unrest,   1 1 

,  labour  leaders  on  the,  1 7 

,  no  definite  plan  to  settle, 

12 

,  W.  T.  Stead  on,  31 

Land,    agricultural,    should    be 

acquired    by    Government, 

55 
— ,   co-operative  cultivation  of. 

5  5 

—  monopoly,  3 

—  Nationalisation  Societies,   i 
— ,  re-occupation  of,  as  remedy 

for  unemployment,   53 
— , — ,  scheme  for,   55 

—  taxes,  34 

Law,  Mr.     S.,     on     the     labour 

problem,   1 9 
Legislation    designed     to    solve 

social  problems,  2 
Leisure,  21 
Lumsden,  James,  "  Qui  National 

Food  Supply,"   57 
Luxtury,  increase  of,   52 

Machinery,  invention  of,  2 
Mechanical  power  and  effect  on 

wealth,  2 
Middlemen,  increase  of,  3 
Mill,  J .  Stuart,  on  wages,  7 1 
Mills,  Mr.  H.  V.,   12,  56 


80 


Index 


Minimum  wage,  28,  41,  43,  53 

for  Governm.ent  employees, 

76 

,  national,  21 

Money,  in  foreign  trade,  70 

National  expenditure,  27 

—  insurance,  15 
Nineteenth    century,    industrial 

conditions  in,  64 

Old-AGE  pensions,  8 

"  Oiir  National  Food  Supply,"  57 

Poor  Laws,  inefficiency  of,  23 
Poverty,  27,  51 

—  abolition  of,  5 

—  Government  and,  23,  26,  47 
— ,  re-occupation     of     land    as 

remedy  for,   53 
— ,     self-supporting    colonies    a 

remedy  for,  56 
— ,  starting    points    in    dealing 

with,  56 
"  Poverty  and  the  State,"  12,  56 

—  (See  also  Destitution,  Starva- 

tion) 
Prices,    Isalance    of    production 
and,  60 

—  and  wages,  68,  74 

— ,  effects  of  high  wages  on,  50 
"  Principles  of  PoUtical 

Economy,"  70 
Production,  balance  of,  60 

Religion,  upholder  of  competi- 
tive system,  5 

Rowntree,  Mr.  S.,  on  the  labour 
problem,  18,  32 

Rural  populations,  destruction 
of.   54 

,  necessity  for  building  up, 

54 

Science,  upholder  of  competitive 

system,  5 
Scientific      discovery,      appUca- 

tion  of,  2 


Slums,  65  . 

Small  Holdings  Acts,  inefficiency 

.of,  55 
Social  disease,  3,  27 

—  problems,  legislation  designed 

to  solve,  2 
Starvation,  3,  6,  ^7 
— ,  aboUtion  of,  7;^ 
— ,  deaths  from,  48 
— ,  disgrace  of  civiUsation,  47 
"  Starvation,  How  to  Stop,"  24 
— ,    responsibility    of    Govern- 
ment for,  77 

—  (See  also  Destitution,  Poverty) 
Stead,  W.  T.,  on  industrial  dis- 
content, 31 

Strikes,  cause  of,  8 

—  effect    of,    on    agitation    for 

minimum  wage,  29 

—  effects  of,  9 

— ,  lessons  of  the,   1 1 

— ,  no  remedy,  21 

"  Studies,  Scientific  and  Social," 

56 
Suicide,  47 

Taxation,  36 

— ,  effect  of,  present  system  of, 

42 
— ,  just,  42 

—  of  large  incomes,  42 
Trade  descriptions,  false,  63 

—  Foreign  (see  Foreign, 

—  Unions,  organisation  of,  9 

Unemployment,  7,  53 

— ,  cause  of,   5  7  a 

— ,  industrial    education    as    a 

remedy  for,   58 
— ,  productive     work     essential 

for,   53 
— ,  re-occupation   of   land   as  a 

remedy  for,  53 
— ,  self-supporting  colonies  as  a 

remedy  for,  56 
— ,    starting    points    in    dealing 

with,  56 


81 


Index 


Wage,  minimum,  28,  41,  43,  53 

for  Government  employees, 

76 

national  minimum,  21 

Wages,  false  law  of,  6 

— ,  Government  employees,  47 

— ,  high,  errors  regarding,  50 

,  class  prejudice  against,  43 

— ,  effects  of,  35,  73 

,  foreign  trade  and,  68 

,  need  for,  46 

— ,  J.  Stuart  MiU  on,  70 
—  prices  and,  68,  74 
— ,  problem  of,  40 
"  Want,  Remedy  for,"  24 


Want  (See  Destitution.  Poverty, 

Starvation) 
Wealth,  increase  of,  2 
Weights    and    measures,    false, 

63 
"  Wonderful  Century,"  24 
Work,  productive,  essential  for 

unemployed,   53 
— ,  two  classes  of,  44 
Workers,  claim  of  the,   14 
— ,   condition  of,   a  disgrace  to 

civilisation,   1 2 
— ,  stationary  condition  of  aver- 
age,  51 
Workhouses,  6 


82 


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